After a trip across to Spa in July, the British GT season resumed at Brands Hatch for round five.
The two hour endurance race round the Kent circuit would prove crucial for the teams and drivers title hopes. Coming from victory at Spa, the Beechdean AMR pairing of Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam would be riding high on momentum as they set the early weekend pace, managing to secure the pole position ahead of Sundays big race.
They would however be joined up front by a number of key players in the championship, including the reigning champions and current title-race leaders, Alexander Sims and Marco Attard in the Ecuire Ecosse BMW who would be looking to challenge the Aston in the hope of extending their valuable points lead.
Locally based racer, Gary Eastwood would help Adam Carroll in his efforts to line the FF Corse Ferrari up seventh on the huge twenty nine car grid, with the pairing looking to repeat their early season success which saw them take second at round one.
Whilst up in the top ten, they were surrounded by four Aston Martins on the grid (two in front, two behind) of which two were run by local team, Oman Racing Team (out of the Motorbase stable) who would be looking to excel at least one of their cars in to the title race and not least help the overall team in the teams standings with a strong home result.
With the huge twenty nine car strong grid lined up under the glorious Kent sunshine, the crowds turned out in force to witness one of the great racing spectacles of the year at the former Grand Prix venue and they were not disappointed – From the moment the lights went out, Andrew Howard stormed off in to a commanding lead gaping the chasing Triple 8 BMW of Lee Mowle.
The fight from third on back would be fierce however with a train of cars looking for every chance possible to gain positions in the key opening stints, but drivers optimism soon took its effect with a number of early incidents – First of which involved Gary Eastwoods in his Ferrari would fell fowl to a risky move by the Team LNT Ginetta at Surtees.
Yet while about to rejoin, Eastwood lost a large amount of time and put the car out of serious contention. In the following laps this pack of GT3 machines would deteriorate with the disposal of a TF sport Aston Martin at the last corner, the Von Ryan Mclaren with the Preci-Spark Mercedes at Stirlings bend and then unfortunately, the number 2 Motorbase Aston of Al-Harthy and Lloyd suffered a rear left puncture which would very shortly lead to a transmission failure, leaving just the one car in the game for Motorbase.
The resulting, untimely safety car diminished Howards lead just before pitstops which while serving his success pit time penalty (as a result of the Spa win) it would leave the Triple 8 BMW out front – who now would be heavily pressured by the sister BMW of Ecurie Ecosse. The pressure would not last long as the much faster BMW piloted by Sims would make his way past and strong to the team’s second victory of the year, further extending their points lead.
With Eastwood’s troubled first stint over and setting a far more regular pace switching with Adam Carroll, he would bring the car home an impressive fifth just ahead of the sole remaining Oman Aston of Rory Butcher and Liam Griffin – This would just be enough to keep Motorbase in the realistic hunt for the title as the number six can sits a strong third in the points.
As for local interest in the GT4 catagery, Jake Hill would continue his maiden season in the championships and his first chance to race his Porsche in front of his home crowd. With the aid of Gary Coombes effort, the AMD tuning Porshce would start a solid 8th in the GT4 class in which (with a few bumps along the way) they would survive and bring home the car in twenty second overall.
Once again, the usual support classes entertained the crowds between the GT sessions – With Formula 4 showcasing the next generation of talent. Tom Jackson would be returning to his home circuit off the back of his maiden victory last time out at Snetterton and would keep his championship hopes alive throughout the three race weekend.
With three podiums prior and countless top five finishes this season, Jackson opened his campaign with a third place on Saturday afternoon behind main title rival Will Palmer who took top honours. Race two would have Tom start a little further back but avoiding an incident at turn one and keeping pressure on the few in front, Jackson yet again found himself up the sharp end.
For the second half of the race, his progress was stunted while struggling to find a way past Harry Newey (Son of Adrian Newey – Red Bull F1 designer no less) but keeping his focus he would finish fourth on track, resulting in yet another third once a time penalty had been added to the race winner, Chris Mealins time due to a jump start.
For the first weekend in a while, the young Formula 4 racers got to race on a dry race track for all three of their weekends encounters, something which came as a relief to Jackson – allowing him two chances at a fast time to help his race three grid positioning – This has been something that has stung him this year with his bad luck conveniently coming in the weekend’s faster races!
Tom would set the seventh fastest race lap time resulting in a seventh place starting spot. Once again, in typical Tom Jackson fashion, he would only go forward in race three. With the drop of the flag, Jackson would come home fifth rounding off his strongest weekend to date with three podiums, two of which podiums.
The Team HARD armada would be hoping to also use the home track support as they continued their efforts in the VW racing cup. Having followed the British GT grid out to Spa, Team HARD completed a double 1-2 with Michael Epps and Howard Fuller which helped boths championship hopes. Local lad Simon Rudd comes to his home race off the back of a double top ten finish at Spa as well, so moral in the team was running high.
Bobby Thompson would lead the HARD bunch in qualifying setting the fourth best time, with their main championship protagonist Howard Fuller up in sixth. In a busy race one, the action of front never got too far apart with the top eight racing within a three second bracket which saw Fuller claim fifth ahead of Spa winner, Michael Epps who had charged through from eleventh on the grid. Rudd would hold station and bring home his VW Golf twelfth from his thirteenth starting spot – Laura Tillett’s race would sing a similar tune, starting twentieth she would work hard in the competitive midfield to claim eighteenth.
With the reverse grid draw for the VW racing cup’s second encounter, Michael Epps would find himself on pole after his sixth place finish, with team mate Howard Fuller alongside – with the team’s hopes of holding the top two spots until the end, like last time out at Spa. The pair would hold the lead off the start but would only race up to turn one. A crash at the back of the field just past the start line halted the first attempt – With a number of cars involved due to a mixture of launch speeds, team HARD would local racer Laura Tillett in the crash ending her weekend earlier than hoped. A disappointing way to end the weekend in front of home support. With the race re-attempted the action was fierce up front with the abbreviated distance – Epps would manage to stay ahead of the train whereas Fuller would get caught in the dicing, damaging his car in an off and putting him a lap behind. The race would once again get stopped just a few laps in with a multi car crash on the Grand Prix loop.
With a lengthy clean up ahead, the race was called short and results went back a lap, gifting Michael Epps the victory. Bobby Thompson found himself in to the top ten through all of the carnage claiming eight with fellow HARD racer Simon Rudd rounding out the top ten – Yet another set of strong results for the team amongst a very mixed set of circumstances to finish the weekend.
The British GT paddock gets back to action at the end of August at Snetterton for the penultimate round of the year – with championships coming to a close, all is still to play for and drivers will be trying to get that one step closer to title glory.