Jake Hill made his debut in the Avon Tyres British GT Championship for AMD Tuning last weekend at Rockingham.

It was a tough introduction for Hill to the championship who was partnering Graham Coomes for the first time, but once again he showed his class and earned some hard fought points in the GT4 category in their Porsche 997.

Racing for the first time with AmD Tuning, 21 year-old BRDC Rising Star Hill took in some practice laps at Silverstone on Friday to gain familiarity with the 390bhp machine, but a clutch failure meant a rush to find a replacement and a very late night for the AmD crew, with Hill then taking to the Rockingham track for  free practice on Saturday morning.

However a problem with the cooling system meant that both the first free practice and the session for bronze rated drivers were lost, putting the team on the back foot, and meaning that Hill and Coomes shared the final 40 minute practice session, learning the cars handling characteristics and trying to catch up with the competition.

Heading into the ten-minute qualifying sessions that Coomes and Hill each had, and taking the combined lap times of the two drivers, the team had made some fundamental changes to improve the balance of the car.

Instantly the changes and the addition of newer tyres for Coomes and new tyres for Hill saw a big improvement in lap times and a very pleasing 7th on the grid of 17 cars in the fiercely competitive GT4 category of British GT’s.

Speaking after Hill’s debut weekend, Team Boss  Shaun Hollamby, said: “We had a tough start to the weekend – having to change the clutch meant we were behind on our usual process of preparation, and that caused the issue with the cooling system and the loss of over an hour of valuable track-time. The boys worked really hard to get the car in good shape for qualifying and both the drivers did a fantastic job with so little track-time to qualify so well.”

Torrential rain greeted the competitors on Sunday morning as the 33 car grid hit the track for the ten-minute ‘Warm-Up’ session, where from the outset Jake Hill set some incredible lap times, running in the top-ten overall and quickest in GT4 by over two seconds at one point, finally edging Jamie Stanley by 0.08 seconds to top the times in his class.

Giving his thoughts after his debut outing, Hill said: “The car had great balance and superb traction to be fastest in my first ever British GT weekend is incredible – now I hope it rains for the race because we are in great shape in these conditions.”

By the 1.25pm start time the track was now totally dry and bright sunshine meant a hot and busy afternoon of high-speed driving, and from the outset Graham Coomes made superb progress, working his way quickly up to fourth place, before a spin at Deene Hairpin and a couple of similar excursions meant he brought the car in to hand over to Hill in 9th position, with a throttle issue making the car ‘push on’ into the corners and hampering Coomes.

“The car was really strong early on, then it felt as though the car wouldn’t stop, meaning I spun and had a couple of trips up the escape road, which we think has been caused by a throttle issue which made it tough” said Coomes.

Hill charged back into the race and was immediately in a battle with the Lotus Evora of Gavin Kershaw and then the Ginetta G55 of Bradley Ellis, the latter barging into Hill and then clattering into the side of the No.49 Porsche, causing Ellis to retire, and Hill to slowly return to the pits with a broken wheel and a puncture.

The time lost meant the team dropped a lap behind their competition, but a late Safety Car enabled Hill to cool his tyres and charge after Jade Edwards, passing her Aston Martin Vantage and then lapping as quickly as the leaders to the end of a very challenging race for the AmD Tuning crew, but earning 3 valuable championship points.

Hollamby added: “We had a lot of real positives this weekend. Jake being fastest in the warm-up showed us what a talent we have and how well we have the car working in the wet, and our qualifying and early race pace was really strong. We had a tough start with the issues on Friday and Saturday morning, and some tough breaks in the race. Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps are next and are tracks we think will really suit us, and we clearly have a very strong driver pairing, so we will make sure we are in great shape for those races” said Hollamby.

“We’re very grateful to Sportif and Fujifilm for their support, so look forward to moving forward with them at Silverstone.”

Images courtesy of www.psp-images.co.uk