R-Racings Miller and Day made British GT Championship history today with this mornings class win (UPDATED)

Sunday, June 26, 2022

 


History was made but sadly not repeated as the R-Racing Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 crew of Josh Miller and Jamie Day took their first race GT4 race win with the Norfolk based team today at the latest round of the British GT Championship from Snetterton.

Having swapped from single seaters and tin tops over the winter, this fourth round was only their fifth and sixth GT4 race together, with a team from near Swaffham who had also bridged across from the TOCA package of Ginetta racing at the turn of the year.


The dynamics within the #23 R-Racing car was such as a class podium at the opening round to the season at Oulton Park was just s suggestion of where these two sixteen-year-olds could take this experience and Saturday’s front row and pole position to Sundays race 1 and race 2 starts respectively just backed that up as just more firsts for the team.

Under the watchful eye of driver coach Bradley Ellis, Miller took the start to this morning’s opening hour long race aboard the #23 car but slipped back to P4 in the opening ten minutes. Matt Topham meanwhile, was still battling thoughts of what the thought he didn’t have under his right foot to maintain his midway position during the opening minutes thanks to his poorer Qualifying performance of late the day before but at least their main rivals – the #42 Stellar Audi started race 1 from pit lane due to an issue arriving at the grid.


Running a staggered pit stop window for the GT3’ from the GT4’s, Topham was to pit at his first availability at the halfway mark as Miller carried on for another couple of laps before passing over to Day.

A recovering #42 Audi would get its elbows out going into turn one from Darren Turner as the Aston Martin factory driver edged Sennan Fielding towards the edge of the track but the Silver used the pit exit lane for extra width – whilst contact was made between the two, the #42 would move ahead of the #27 with just minutes remaining.


With the race looking like another victory from the Mustang ahead, an incomplete move from the Team Parker Racing Porsche GT4 going under the bridge and into Brundle saw contact between the two cars made and the Mustang spin out in effective retirement from the lead. That saw Day move immediately up to P2 and he would cross the finishing line behind the behind that car the Porsche would be served a 31 second time penalty in lieu of a drive through penalty for that contact lifting the #23 car into a P1 finishing position.

That result placed Miller and Day into the record books of the Championship as the youngest pairing ever to win a class together and was a result they richly deserved anyway. For Topham and Turner, their struggles during Qualifying and the race would be rewarded with a P3 overall finish in GT4 plus another PR0-Am class win.


With little or no damage to sort in-between races, for race 2 it was the turn of Day to take his first GT4 class pole position start with Turner’s #27 Newbridge car just a few places behind in sixth.

Like race one, the #23 was again slow up to speed with the new Pirelli tyres so it wasn’t long before others were pecking at the tailgate of Day for position. First the #42 Audi and then the #90 BMW passed Day as everything obviously wasn’t well aboard the #23 with Turner then the Toyota soon following suit to drop the pole sitter down to seventh, so it wasn’t a surprise to see the #23 car pit early for its mandatory stop plus 15 second silver cup penalty plus 15 second winners success penalty from earlier – so without being a mathematician, their race was already effective run!!


For Topham, Turner had delivered the #27 car to him from second but a mistake in pit lane by the Steller crew saw Topham assume the GT4 class lead for the first time with less than half an hour to go. Whilst the laps counted down and Miller did pick off three places on track (although not in class), the #90 BMW would again be back to haunt the gentleman driver in the #27 to finally snatch the race lead again with nine minutes to go.

Looking like a P2 overall was on the cars, the Ford Mustang also showed another appearance to snatch P2 from Topham on the final lap as the tyres under the Aston Martin went from bad to worse but third overall and in front of the #42 Audi was still a good result for the Newbridge crew with another Pro-Am class win as well putting them in the joint overall lead with the #42 Audi crew.

UPDATE

A post race time penalty has been awarded to #42 Audi for speeding in the pit lane - those 25 seconds drop the #42 down to P11 overall and that change gives Topham and Turner the overall GT4 Class lead now by eight points going into next round.

 

 Photo credits were necessary - Jacob Ebrey

 

 

 

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