Team Brit come out on top again after second round of the British Endurance Championship from Oulton Park

Sunday, April 03, 2022

It was the second round of the 2022 British Endurance Championship from Oulton Park on Saturday as again, four Aston Martin’s helped to make up the twenty-four-car mixed class entry around the 2.7-mile Cheshire circuit.

Unlike the opening round of the new for 2022 season at Silverstone, the twists and turns of the MSV circuit were to prove expectedly difficult for the #6 Venture Innovations Aston Martin Vulcan of Gleb Stepanov and Stephen Tomkins. In contrast, the three more nimbler Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4’s of the Team Brit and T7 Motorsport were to be the favoured cars from the marque by the end of this two-hour race.

Losing time due to an earlier incident within the BEC, it was to be a delayed start to the race with the Vulcan still having Qualified in P2 overall and with the #50 T7 Motorsport AMR Vantage GT4 of Peter Montague and Stuart Hall claiming pole position in their Class D car. The last time class winning Team Brit AMR Vantage GT4 of Luke Pound and Andy Tucker claimed P5 in class just ahead of their team’s sister car, that of Mark and Dale Albutt in their #33 Aston.

At the start, Stepanov lost places hand over fist as he gave those chasing him a wide berth around the opening corners – rightly protecting his multi-million-pound car against the ravishes of panel damage for only slight gains on track.

Luke pound also soon removed the class lead from Montague in his #50 car and set about extending his lead with Albutt Snr doing likewise soon after.

With this time two compulsory pit stop and driver changes required, Montague elected to get one of these over with early swapping over to his ex-AMR factory co-driver to lead the chase during the middle stint of the race.

At the halfway stage, the #6 Vulcan was suffering from technical issues after an earlier off-track excursion for Tomkins and that would put paid to their efforts for the remainder of the race as the orange Vulcan would eventually finish down in P12 overall but still P3 in class.

Unlike the 1-2 of Silverstone for the #68 and #50 Vantage GT4’s, the Team Brit crew would be unable to hang onto their class lead during the final stages of the race to ultimately finish P9 overall and P2 in class. Whilst the #50 car would finish just ahead of the Albutt car in P4 in class, the father/son combo aboard the #33 would this time have a much better race to end their day in P5 in class.

The next round will be at Snetterton in just over five weeks’ time.

Photo credits – Steve Jackman (Eat my Pixels)