British GT Snetterton Round up
The British GT rumbled and roared around the Norfolk countryside with a double win for Phil Keen & Adam Balon in GT3 in their Lamborghini, while in GT4 the new Audi R8 with Sennan Fielding and Richard Williams scored a maiden win in race 1 and Tolman Motorsport victorious in race 2.
Race 1
GT3 Starting from pole Tom Gamble made the initial break to lead, but that lasted as far as Wilson before Sam De Haan in his Lamborghini made contact with the lead BMW. While the top two had their altercation, Glynn Geddie in his Team Parker Bentley made a move to lead the race.
Gamble managed to gather up the BMW and rejoin the action in second while De Haan ended up fourth. Further back Richard Neary's Mercedes AMG Mercedes was involved with an incident with the Beechdean AMR that resulted in the Mercedes retiring with front end damage.
Geddie out front was slowly building a lead over second placed Gamble with the Optimum Motorsport Aston Martin of Ollie Wilkinson in third, only just as he was fending off the Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini of Adam Balon who was challenging hard.
With the pitstops due, the Team Parker Bentley in theory should have emerged back out front. Alas a tardy stop enabled the Century Motorsport of Jack Mitchell, who had taken over from Gamble, to take over the lead of the race closely followed by Phil Keen. Mitchell did all he could to keep the lighter Lamborghini at bay but an electrical issue forced the BMW to slow and Keen seized his chance and was away.
As Keen was off in the distance, behind it was all happening. Ratcliffe managed to get his Bentley back into second aided by Mitchell having his troubles and Bradley Ellis serving a one second stop go penalty for a short pitstop. The Bentley though was defending heavily from a queue made up Rob Bell, Jonny Adam, Seb Morris and Jonny Cocker. Bell and his McLaren suffered a puncture and was out. Adam was challenging Morris at every opportunity and when there was a glimmer he sent the Aston through. On the last lap Morris tried to repay the favour but made contact with a GT4 car. This meant that there was now a drag race between TF-Sport's Aston and the Lamborghini to the flag for that final podium. With just 0.082s between the pair, it was the Aston that claimed that final podium spot.
GT4
As the pack accelerated away, the #19 Multimatic Mustang didn't get a great start and while trying to pass it the #43 Century Motorsport was clipped and pulled off at the end of pit exit with damage to the front right wheel.
Richard Williams in the new Audi R8 passed pole-sitter Scott Maxwell and was off for the rest of the race. The #15 Multimatic Mustang had to serve an additional 24s (10s for winning at Oulton and 14s as a Silver Cup pairing) when the pitstop window opened. This allowed the Audi to remain unchallenged for the race and allow Sennan Fielding to take the flag with ease.
Josh Smith in the #4 Tolman Motorsport McLaren was running third with HHC's Callum Pointon just behind.
With the longer stop for the #15 Multimatic Mustang, this plummeted them down the order. Dorlin now in the #4 Tolman was now running second and being chased by Fox Motorsport Michael Broadhurst. Broadhurst was in turn being chased by the #66 Team Parker Mercedes of Scott Malvern. Unfortunately for Malvern he had to come in to the pits to serve a stop/go for short pitstop. This meant Broadhurst was now in the middle of a Tolman Motorsport sandwich as Collard was challenging hard for that final step. Eventually Collard managed to get his McLaren passed and join fellow team mate on the podium. Broadhurst finally finished in fifth after another McLaren, this time the HHC version, made its way passed his Mercedes AMG. 4
Race 2
GT3 Phil Keen and the Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini lead the field from pole ahead of TF-Sport Nicki Thiim in the Aston Martin. For the duration of the opening stint the Aston was glued to the bumper to capitalise on the 10s success penalty the Lamborghini would have to endue at the pitstop.
Both teams left it as late as possible to make their stops and duly came in together. This meant that Mark Farmer now had a 10s lead at the front of the field. Balon who had taken over from Keen emerged just ahead of sister Lamborghini of De Haan. Both Lamborghini's then started working together to overcome the deficit to the lead Aston Martin. This plan worked and along with some drizzle coming down over the Norfolk track, it wasn't long before both had passed the Aston.
The two Lamborghini's ran together for the rest of the race, the gap ebbing and flowing as they made their way passed the GT4 field. As they crossed the line, the gap was only 0.5s. The victory also meant that Phil Keen was now the most successful GT3 driver with the most victories, 17, to his name.
Completing the podium was the Balfe Motorsport McLaren. Rob Bell was running fourth before the pitstops keeping Century Motorsport's Ben Green, Adam Christodoulou in his repaired Team ABBA Mercedes AMG (sterling work by the time to fix the damage sustained in race 1),Jonny Adam and Bradley Ellis behind. Shaun Balfe had now taken the wheel from Bell and was chasing the Aston for that final spot and duly made his move towards the end of the race.
GT4
Scott Malvern managed to make the most of his pole position and enjoyed a 14s lead by the time the pitstop window opened and handed the Mercedes AMG over to Nick Jones. Because of the success penalties others were having to serve, Jones was enjoying a healthy 17s lead over HHC Motorsport Callum Pointon. With penalties being dished out for various misdemeanour's for Pointon (short pitstop) and Graham Johnson (causing an avoidable accident) Lewis Proctor was now running second, albeit 30s behind as they started the last lap.
With the win in their sights, disaster struck the Team Parker Mercedes as they suffered a puncture as they were forced wide by a GT3 car. Proctor claimed the victory after starting back in fifth. TF Sport Tom Canning claimed second as the #57 HHC Motorsport McLaren was handed a penalty, but the HHC outfit still managed to complete the podium.
Racing resumes at the blue ribband event at Silverstone on June 8/9.
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