Nathan Heathcote attacked the final drama-filled round of the Millers Oils Ginetta GT4 SuperCup Championship at Brands Hatch to take the ‘Am’ class crown in his first ever season of tarmac racing.  

Joining the BTCC support programme for 2019 from the sideways action of World Rallycross, Nathan set himself the objective of winning the ‘Am’ class and getting amongst the top ‘Pro’ drivers, which he showed his capabilities to do, in the very first event.  

The Kent youngster not only had to learn the precision skills needed for this sort of one-make  motorsport and how to handle the Century Motorsport Ginetta G55 GT4 machine, every circuit he arrived at he was seeing for the first time!

Even this second visit to Brands Hatch was new to him as he had never driven the fast, flowing GP circuit, only the short ‘Indy’ format.  

Nathan came into the final three-race event knowing that he would need solid points and no ‘dramas’ to have a chance of turning over the nine-point deficit to his series-long rival Colin White.

However, following the story of the rest of his season, this was far from the case! After setting pole position, Nathan was comfortably leading the whole of the opening race on Saturday when a last corner ‘move’ from White sent both of them into the gravel, wiping out any points advantage gained! Nathan was not happy.  

Sunday’s opening race was extremely slippery and many of the runners tasted gravel with a succession of safety car incidents and spins. In this disjointed race a disappointed Nathan finished fifth, one place behind his rival.  

The final race was dramatic from the off as White had a problem on the line and got out of his car to investigate, triggering a post-race ten second penalty.

A double car crash necessitating heavy lifting gear kept the pack behind the safety car for most of the race with Nathan two places behind Colin White.

Once the penalty became known Nathan didn’t need to get past Colin but given the racer he is, he made a proper battle of it to get the better of his adversary for full revenge and the Championship trophy!  

An ecstatic Nathan said, “Wow what an ending to this season and I’m so happy to have got the title  here at Brands Hatch. It’s been a rollercoaster ride all season and this weekend was even more dramatic. It was shame for the race that Colin got a penalty but I thought, ‘let’s turn it into a race anyway’, so it was good to get that final win also!Big thanks to Century Motorsport, all my supporters and family, we now need to have a good think about what to do next.”

Images courtesy of www.pspimages.co.uk