British GT Silverstone 500 round up
Victory for Rob Collard / Sandy Mitchell to claim GT3 race victory and GT3 title, while Andrew Gordon Colebrooke / Rob Wheldon take GT4 race win and Dan Vaughan / Jamie Caroline crowned GT4 Champions.
Starting from pole, Collard led the field when the lights went out with Adam Balon following close behind. However a safety car was soon needed after a coming together of a couple of GT4 cars at the exit of Becketts.
Barwell Motorsport called both Lamborghinis in to pit straight away while the RAM Racing Mercedes AMG completed another lap before pitting.
When racing resumed, Mitchell was leading the way but with success penalty to serve at the last pitstops, Barwell decided to let the #72 Lamborghini take the lead to try and offset the extra 20s they would have to serve.
Up to P3 now was Sam Neary in the Team Abba Mercedes AMG. They pitted straight away too when the safety was sent out. Unfortunately two penalties within the first hour took the Neary's out of a podium contention.
Muriel Burma was now P3 in his RAM Racing Mercedes AMG with Ollie Milroy, Patrick Kuala and Andrea Caldaria all following along.
During the next round of stops, Ian Loggie, who had taken over from Buurman, managed to jump both Barwell Lamborghinis and out in front. Collard was soon on the back of the Mercedes after already passing Balon. However it was all soon to change for the Barwell team.
Balon by now had dropped down to P5 and was keeping Sam De Haan at bay, but ultimately got turned round by De Haan. A 10s stop-go was given to De Haan which in turn ended the #69 RAM Racing 2020 title hopes. Out front though, Collard took the lead off Buurman and was now with half a hand on the title.
The team couldn't fully relax as Optimum's duo Lewis Proctor / Ollie Wilkinson was making up ground, while quietly getting on with it were Jensen Team Rocket RJN of James Baldwin / Michael O'Brien and now within contention.
Optimum Motorsport title hopes ended as Wilkinson spun after making the slightest of touches with Loggie. O'Brien though was right on the tail of Mitchell as he exited the pits to start the final stint, but the young Scot got his head down and set off to a clear victory and with that the 2020 GT3 title.
Buurman finished P2 after passing O'Brien and in doing so took the 2020 Pro/Am honours.
In the GTC race John Dhillon lead the class in his Scott Sport Ferrari with Phil Quaife sharing the driving duties and the pair did all they could to make sure they were in contention.
Lucky Khera / Lee Frost / Ross Wylie were unlucky to have a lengthy pitstop to repair damage meant that they couldn't carry on the challenge for the lead.
Laurent De Meeus / Jamie Stanley managed to keep clear of any trouble at the start of the race in their FF Corse Ferrari, and even enjoyed the lead of the race overall while the safety car was out. Once racing resumed, De Meeus was spun round by the GT3 pack and lost time.
Ryan Ratcliffe / Justin Armstrong in their Team Parker Racing Porsche were just quietly getting on with it and suffering no troubles to emerge in a fight with the Scott Sport pairing for the victory. Dhillon though suffered damage after a clash in the last hour and had to slowly make his way back to the pits for repairs to his Ferrari. This meant Armstrong / Ratcliffe enjoyed an untroubled end to the race with De Meeus / Stanley P2 while Dhillon / Quaife completed the podium.
Over in GT4 the title could go one of five ways and during the three hours any one of them could have claimed top honours.
With a safety car needed to rescue Nick Jones and Mia Flewitt stranded cars TF-Sport pitted both their Aston Martins to take advantage of pitting at slower race pace. Unfortunately both cars picked up a stop-car penalty for exiting the pitlane while the red light was one.
Century Motorsport though decided to keep Wheldon out as long as possible before letting Gordon-Colebrooke take over driving duties. Once the safety car period ended and the stops completed it was the BMW M4 of Gordon-Colebrooke who enjoyed a sizeable advantage, even though this wasn't apparent until near the end of the race. It wasn't until all the pitstops had taken place during the final hour that it was clear the M4 was nearly 30s clear of the field.
During the last hour the title battle was still on. Jordan Collard had done all he can in the HHC Motorsport McLaren and Patrik Matthiesen was running P2 and therefore half a hand on the title, while keeping a watching eye on both TF Sport Aston Martins.
Caroline was in the driving seat for the last stint and closing in fast on Matthiesen. Kibble was shadowing Caroline's every move. Both Astons were closing in fast and both duly passed the McLaren in the dying minutes of the 3 hour race.
Finishing P2 behind the victorious BMW M4 was enough for Caroline / Vaughan was enough for them to claim the GT4 title. With the sister Aston Martin P3 it also wrapped up the GT4 Teams' title for TF-Sport. Not only did Caroline / Vaughan claim overall GT4 title, but also the 2020 Silver Cup Championship. The Pro /Am title went to Mia Flewitt / Euan Hankey even though the were out at the start, the title was already won before the race started.
And thats it for 2020 in a very strange revised calendar. The 2021 season starts up again April 3 & 5 again at Oulton Park.
