Barwell take the spoils as TF Sport lose points lead

Wednesday, August 10, 2016


TF Sport’s Jonny Adam and Derek Johnston will be ruing missed chances as they lost their points lead at a British GT double-header at Snetterton dominated by Barwell Motorsport’s Phil Keen and Jon
In GT4, two strong races from the #407 Beechdean AMR Aston Martin Vantage of Ross Gunn and Jack Bartholomew saw the latter move to within 2.5 points of the drivers championship lead with just the last round at Donington Park to go.
TF Sport’s Jonny Adam and Derek Johnston will be ruing missed chances as they lost their points lead at a British GT double-header at Snetterton dominated by Barwell Motorsport’s Phil Keen and Jon Minshaw.
In GT4, two strong races from the #407 Beechdean AMR Aston Martin Vantage of Ross Gunn and Jack Bartholomew saw the latter move to within 2.5 points of the drivers championship lead with just the last round at Donington Park to go.
At the start of the first of two one-hour races, it was actually Adam and Johnston’s fellow Aston Martin Vantage driving team mates Mark Farmer and Jon Barnes who made the most of clear track at the start to pull away from Minshaw’s Lamborghini Huracan GT3.
GT4 also saw good progress from the Aston teams as Generation AMR MacMillan Racing’s Jack Mitchell was joined at the front by Jack Bartholomew as they each cut past their rivals and gained three places apiece from their qualifying positions.
Back in the top class, not moving forward was Johnston’s TF Vantage who tangled with the Black Bull Ecurie Ecosse McLaren 650S of Alasdair McCaig at Agostinis and slipped down to ninth place to leave himself with a lot of work to do.
Come the pitstops the #11 of Barnes and Farmer had their own issue to deal with - a 10s success penalty because of their Spa success. While the crew performed a flawless stop, the extra time meant they came out behind Keen in the Lamborghini and Joe Osborne in the AmDTuning.com BMW Z4 GT3.
The speed of Keen and Osborne was too much for Barnes who found himself running alone in third - Seb Morris’ Team Parker Racing Bentley Continental GT3 running a speed deficit down the straights and under pressure from Jonny Adam in fifth. While he closed to within a car length of Morris lap after lap that Bentley can be a very wide car at points.
Back to Barnes though and he, as well as Adam incidentally, inherited a place higher than the one he finished in as Osborne was penalised for shunting Keen into a spin when moving up to the lead. With 30s added to the BMW driver’s time, Barnes inherited second and Adam climbed to fourth.
In GT4, a final 30 minute charge from Ciaran Haggerty in the Ecurie Ecosse McLaren 570S GT4 saw the young Scot climb up to the lead of the class at the expense of Matthew George’s MacMillan car and Gunn’s Beechdean machine.
The last ten minutes of the race saw Gunn really cut into Haggerty’s lead, but the last lap heroics was taken off the table after Gunn ran wide at turn one and had to settle for second place.
He certainly didn’t make that mistake in race two as the Pro drivers started the race and Gunn led away from pole position in the face of immense pressure from Matty Graham in the Generation AMR SuperRacing entry.
Leading by a second for much of his stint, Bartholomew took over at the mandatory stop halfway through the race and stretched the lead out over title rivals Graham Johnson and Mike Robinson in the PMW World Expo Racing Ginetta G55 GT4 who recovered from a mediocre first race to finish on the runner-up spot second time round.
Not having a good race in GT4 though was the MacMillan Racing Aston which finished race one on the podium. Early on in the race, the car developed an engine fault which saw the car stop out on track
Also having issues was the PFL Motorsport Aston Martin started in race two by Jody Fannin. A clutch issue saw them pit early doors and then retire the car when the hardworking mechanics couldn’t fix the issue.
Going a lot better though was TF Sport, with Adam and Johnston finishing second come the end of the race after battles with Barwell and AmDTuning.com - much like the first race.
Running third in the final 10 minutes of the race, Johnston finally managed to get the better of Lee Mowle and put the BMW behind him but at this point Minshaw was so far down the road his Lamborghini couldn’t be caught.
That means the last round at Donington Park is crucial for TF Sport, the lead the #17 had held since round one at Brands Hatch has turned into an 11.5 point deficit to Keen and Minshaw so nothing less than a win will do for the Aston pair alongside the hope that the Barwell crew have an admittedly uncharacteristic bad weekend.
For GT4’s form man Jack Bartholomew, he’ll be hoping to again count on the support of Ross Gunn to take the good result he needs to overhaul the slender 2.5 point margin and claim Beechdean’s third GT4 drivers title in a row.

Joe Hudson
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