This weekend’s second round of the British GT Championship proved itself to be a very productive one for the five Aston Martin Racing powered crews after the results of race one earlier today were surpassed by a clean sweep in class podium finishes for each crew after the delayed race two.
Usually the opening round to the domestic season over the Easter weekend, this weekend’s visit to Cheshire was this time blessed with the hottest recorded days in May and with that came some fine performances from the one Vantage Gt3 crew and the four Vantage GT4 crews.
The #7 Beechdean AMR GT3 of Andrew Howard and Ross Gunn had earlier made their statement of intent as both drivers secured an overall pole position for each race in Saturday’s individual qualifying sessions with the #21 MK Racing GT4 car of Will Orton and Jessica Hawkins doing similar in class.
The Bank Holiday Monday race programme got underway earlier with the ‘amateur’ driver taking the start within both classes but that saw both Howard and Hawkins pipped for overall class position going into the first corner of the first lap. A spin within the GT3 ranks was thankfully avoided by all coming up from behind as the race quickly descended into an intensive but individual GT3 and GT4 class battle.
Whilst Howard and Hawkins were able to stabilise and hold their P2 position in class, Dan Lavery was having to make up for lost ground following their pit lane start and James Townsend was coming under unwanted attack around the Shell hairpin. John Hartshorne in his #97 GBR Stratton Motorsport AMR Vantage GT4 was running at his own pace but was soon descended upon by the GT3 leaders just ahead of their pit stop window,
Over the course of the separated GT3/GT4 pitstops, however, a clash between two GT4’s and then a GT3 going off on the dropped fluid brought out the Safety Car before all GT4’s had completed their stops. That at least allowed the #21 MK Racing Aston to complete their compulsory stop not at racing speed with the ability them to catch up onto the tail of the pack before the race went back to green.
Stops over, and the #7 car of Gunn was still holding second overall and although Gunn did drop off the tail of the leading Lamborghini, he did eventually catch them back up again but the race clock had counted down to zero immediately before the two cars crossed the line meaning that there would be no second chance and second overall was the prize for Beechdean AMR.
That result was backed up by another deserving P2 finish for the silver classed #21 crew as well as a P2 in GT4 Pro-Am finish for the #27 Grange Racing GT4 of Lavery and Darren Turner – something that went towards making up for their DNF at the season opening at Silverstone last month. The #97 GBR Stratton car of Hartshorne and Ronan Pearson would finish P22 overall/ P5 in Pro-Am with the #40 Townsend Motorsport AMR of James Townsend and Joe Wheeler one car behind.
Race two was delayed somewhat by a prolonged red flag period during a support race as well as other technical issues at the circuit to eventually start nearly eighty minutes later than scheduled.
This time, and as elected by Race Control, it would be a Safety Car restart after two warm up laps meaning that the possibility of a time delaying opening lap incident was reduced as much as possible (with marked consideration for the circuits end of meeting curfew).
This time with the Pro’s taking the start, Gunn needed to put in some quicker laps to make up for their forthcoming seven second success penalty at their stop over that of the chasing #77 McLaren that remained in hot pursuit. The air temperature was still into the thirties by the time that the race eventually started will all five Astons on the grid in time to roll off behind the Safety Car as this time, it was Orton’s job to play catch up with the #42 Ginetta that was then romping away into the distance.
As the GT3 class came up towards their stops, the gap that Gunn had built up to the car behind was suddenly slashed to less than a second but at least the gap to the chasing pack had grown to nearly nine seconds as the #7 car headed to pit lane at the last minute. Whilst the #77 McLaren did make the pass for position within their pitstop sequence, a slower stop by the McLaren team made the deficit not as large as it could have otherwise been.
Next up were the GT4 cars and whilst the #40 car of Townsend did steal position from the #27 AMR of Lavery, that would later be adjudged to be down to their own stop being too quick for which that earned themselves a stop plus one second penalty for that error.
The silver class and podium in race one success time penalty also dropped the re-emerging #21 car of (now) Hawkins behind the #27 Grange Racing overall in the overall stakes, but Lady Luck would come their way soon after as the then class leading Ginetta would go off track with apparent steering damage to hand the lead to Lavery as a result.
Despite some big pressure from Hawkins, Lavery would survive a late error of his own to take the GT4 class overall win plus his own GT4 Pro-Am class win with the #21 MK Racing close behind securing their second overall podium result of their own plus being first in Silver. Reward would also come to both the #40 Townsend and #97 GBR Stratton entries again as their secured P2 and P3 respectively in GT4 Pro-Am – the second of the season for the #97 crew.
The biggest race to the flag, however, was within GT3 as Howard had to deal with the close attention of two other cars behind straight from his pit lane exit to the flag as he would be fortunate to benefit from the timely positioning of GT4 lapped traffic to preserve his lead of them until the end to claim their second P2 overall finish of the weekend as the Championship heads south to Spa Francorchamps for their next round of the season in a months’ time.
Oulton Park was certainly a great result for all five AMR powered runners.
Photo credits – Teams / Jacob Ebrey / social media / P Hay