Nathan Heathcote certainly had a tough second round to the Millers Oils Ginetta GT4 Supercup after being involved in a massive accident on Sunday afternoon.
After an encouraging Thursday test at the iconic Leicestershire circuit, events went from bad to worse for Nathan, resulting in a less-than-hoped-for points haul and a badly damaged Ginetta G55 GT4.
Qualifying was held in very wet conditions and the Kentish driver ended P4 with a time of 1m20.622s but feeling confident of improvements across the three races.
Saturday’s two races were also wet but started to dry as the day wore on. The 12 lap sprint race was punctuated by two safety car interventions, the first of which was flagged out whilst Nathan was in second place. An incident in front meant Nathan had to take to the grass allowing several cars past and he was frustrated not to get more places back, with only five laps of actual racing amongst the pace car procession, giving him a third in the ‘Am’ class.
The second outing saw Nathan head the field in some style before a small mistake as he clipped a wet kerb and spun out of contention, re-joining the track to take a disappointing seventh position.
Sunday’s race three gave Nathan a chance to make amends as he powered through the field for second before taking the class lead. Then disaster struck as the young driver was caught up in a crash in front of him, hitting a spinning car to put him into the wall in a scary looking accident. Nathan was uninjured but his car was heavily damaged.
Speaking after a tough weekend, Nathan said, “That was a pretty disastrous weekend to be honest! We managed to lead two of the races but got caught up in other people’s accidents the last of which was a pretty big one. I was really enjoying Donington Park, it’s a great circuit so I’m a bit gutted to have come away with so little.
“We now have plenty of time to think before the next race at Croft, which can’t come soon enough to be honest.”
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