All set up rather nicely for tomorrows finale

Saturday, September 14, 2019

Tomorrows final round of the 2019 British GT Championship is all set up nicely to produce yet another cracking #DoningtonDecider that we have all come to expect over the years with three Aston Martin Racing Partner team drive line ups 'well in' with a chance of lifting their respective class title with another with an outside chance at the end of another two hours of racing.

Glorious weather today at the Leicestershire circuit allowed many of the thirty eight GT3 and GT4 cars to circulate faster than what they did at round 6 from the circuit earlier in the year and with similar weather and warmer temperatures again expected tomorrow's two hour finale will be a fast and furious one for sure.

All of the AMR's up for Championship contention - #47 GT3 TF Sport of Graham Davidson/Jonny Adam, the #97 GT4 TF Sport of Tom Canning/Ashley Hand, the #11 GT4 Beechdean AMR of Martin Plowman/Kelvin Fletcher and somewhat with the outsider #96 GT3 Optimum car of Ollie Wilkinson/Bradley Ellis all kept their 'powder somewhat dry' in the opening Free Practice sessions earlier today, letting others go thrashing about the circuit always with a risk of damaging their cars.

For all except the #96 car, none of these crews have to win (whereas the #96 do) to keep alive their championship aspirations but they did have some issue with their brakes during the morning which is hopefully now cured.

At the end of this afternoons combined Qualifying sessions it was the Balfe Motorsport McLaren 720S that grabbed pole position from the #72 Championship contending Lamborghini of Phil Keen and Adam Balon but worryingly the #72 has been consistently quick all day today. The #47 TF Sport car of Davidson and Adam will start from the second row of the grid - close enough to the #72 to keep them in check and far enough forward to hopefully keep out of the pack on the opening lap.

In GT4, the #97 TF Sport car of Canning and Hand have repeated what they have been doing almost from race three by Qualifying up towards the front other pack, starting P2 but with (possibly importantly) their sister #95 car of Patrick Kibble and Josh Price starting between the them and the Championship contending Ford Mustang of Scott Maxwell and Sea Priaulx down in P5.

The #11 Beechdean AMR GT4 race tomorrow to retain the top honours in the GT4 Pro-Am class with a P2 start in that class - P11 overall in GT4 but four places behind their pole setting Fox Motorsport Mercedes. Their main championship rivals however (Graham Johnson and Michael O'Brien) will be starting in their Balfe McLaren 570S from right behind them in P12 overall - the Balfe car must win to have any chance by the time the chequered flag falls at 15:00hrs tomorrow.

That all said, the race will be what it will be. Champions will be crowned and will make for an early start to their celebrations whilst others will come up just short at the end of what has been another highly entertaining season of GT racing at the highest level.

We obviously just hope that the former will be an AMR crew or two or three!!!

Confirmation of GT3 Qualifying and starting positions can be found HERE for GT3 and HERE for GT4

Whilst all eyes will be upon those in the Championship races lets not forget those who are not with the Mark Farmer/Nicki Thiim pairing probably running its final outing tomorrow in the #2 TF Sport GT3 whilst Andrew Howard is again out with Valentin Hasse Clot in the #99 Beechdean AMR GT3 after their first race together at Brands Hatch. Then in GT4 with have both the Optimum cars of Connor O'Brien and Jack Butel in the #35 and Mike Robinson and Patrik Mathiessen in the #75. We have already mentioned the #97 TF Sport car of Kibble and Price so that just leaves both Academy cars of Micah Stanley and Ben Hurst in the #61 car finally Will Moore and Alex Toth Jones in the #62 if it runs as it seems that both cars were again blighted with technical issues today. The #62 hasn't run beyond FP1 it seems.