The Oman Racing Team netted their second victory of the Avon Tyres British GT season last weekend at the Silverstone 500 race.

The Wrotham based outfit dominated the race through Ahmad Al Harthy and Michael Caine in their Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 for the win, there was also a ninth place finish for Liam Griffin and Rory Butcher in the sister car to secure their first points of the season.

A strong qualifying session for Al Harthy and Caine on Saturday afternoon saw the number four Vantage line up on the second row for Sunday’s main event, with Butcher and Griffin securing a solid ninth in the number five Vantage.

Al Harthy took the opening stint, quickly moving up into second place on the opening lap before taking advantage of a mistake by race leader and current Champion Andrew Howard to steal the lead on the eighth lap. A perfectly timed early pit stop under the first safety car period paid off for the Oman Racing Team with Caine re-joining the field in fourth where he quickly made his way up into P2 before taking the lead once more in the number four Vantage. Meanwhile, the number five Aston was in 8^th after a strong stint from Griffin with Butcher re-joining in 10^th following a swift pit stop.

With Caine handing over to Al Harthy for the Omani’s second stint around the 90 minute mark, the Oman Racing Team had already built up a substantial lead as the rest of the field commenced with the second round of pit stops. Unfortunately the second handover for the Aston ran slightly longer than planned and delayed Butcher’s re-joining of the field.

Al Harthy drove another faultless stint before handing over to Caine who re-joined in third with just over 30 minutes of the race left to run. Caine pushed on for the remaining laps to take the second race win of the season for the Oman Racing Team with a remarkable winning margin of just under a minute.

Speaking after the victory a delighted, Team boss David Bartrum said: “Another great day for the Oman Racing Team. After the disappointment of Rockingham and losing the opportunity to win there it’s great to come to Silverstone and win the biggest race of the year the Silverstone 500 – 3 hours of non-stop sportscar racing, good team tactics and everyone did their job absolutely brilliantly.

“Michael and Ahmad’s pace was exceptional, bearing in mind that Michael won by 56 seconds to Jonny Adam in the Beechdean Aston, I thought that was pretty good. Rory and Liam put in a good drive as well in the other Aston and to have both cars finish in the top ten and one a winner is a fantastic result.

“Looking at the podium was quite amusing – we had Michael and Ahmad up there as current Motorbase drivers and I then looked across at Jonny Adam and Steven Kane – both ex-Motorbase and it was quite nice to see them all up there together like an old school photo, albeit not a school that you’d want to go to!”

Griffin and Butcher showed tremendous pace in the Aston during their final stints. With Butcher lapping faster than both Aston’s of Onslow-Cole and Abra ahead, the young Scotsman benefited from a drive through penalty for  the Strata 21 Vantage in the closing laps to end the race in ninth place overall and collect their first points finish of the season.

Giving his thoughts after their first points finish of the season, Griffin said: “This weekend has been a thoroughly enjoyable experience. It’s a whole new type of racing that takes a bit of getting used and to get your head around. The safety car makes such a big difference and unfortunately we missed out so when you look at it we could have been a minute quicker which probably would have put us top 5 or 6 which would have been more representative.

“I still think there’s a bit more pace to come from me but my race pace is better than my qualifying pace so if I can work on that and we can start a bit further up the pack then that will certainly make life easier.”

The weekend’s results have put the Motorbase-run squad firmly back in the fight for the championship title with Caine and Al Harthy sitting in third place, just 4.5 points adrift of the championship leaders.

The Oman Racing Team has a short break now before the Avon Tyres British GT Championship gets underway once more at Norfolk’s Snetterton 300 Circuit on June 21/22.