Who will be on the top step this time around after Sundays British GT's finale from Donington Park?
Wednesday, October 12, 2022
Unlike many other series rounding off their season this weekend, this time around we have not one but two Aston Martin Racing powered crews in overall Championship contention within the GT4 class as Newbridge Motorsport and R-Racing go head-to-head with the Stellar Motorsport Audi crew to determine just who is ‘top dog’ in 2022.
Having won their Pro-Am class in the Championship last season, the #27 Newbridge AMR Vantage GT4 crew of Matt Topham and Darren Turner chalked it up for reference that they would be aiming for the overall GT4 crown during their 2022 campaign before Topham considers other opportunities moving forward.
Going into this final two-hour round from Donington Park on Sunday, the #27 crew hold a 12.5-point lead over the #42 Stellar Audi of Richard Williams and Sennan Fielding whilst the Norfolk based R-Racing AMR #23 crew of Josh Miller and Jamie Day lurk just 8 points behind the Audi crew in third, making for a three-way, winner takes all finale.
The stationary periods for each car during their mandatory pit stop will become a crucial factor for each of these crews, particularly so for the two Silver class cars of Stellar and R-Racing thanks to their additional twenty-six seconds for their class but the #27 Newbridge car also has to stop for 20 seconds of their own thanks to their class win last time out at Brands Hatch in early September (just ahead of the Stellar car).
Whilst that does disadvantage the Audi, it does kind of equalises the two Aston Martin crews which can only make for a great spectacle with a possible 37.5 points still to be won or lost.
It is an identical situation within the GT4 Teams Championship, but Topham and Turner still need to do well against the Team Brit McLaren crew if they are to successfully defend their GT4 Pro-Am title whilst Day/Miller would need to outscore Williams/Fielding by more than 20 points to snatch the Silver title at the end.
Finally, you may have seen last week that welcome back to the Championship the Beechdean AMR Vantage GT3 of Andrew Howard for the first (and last) time this season after their ill-fated excursion into the European based GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup and a couple of other OEM cameo appearances at other rounds earlier in the year.
Like those cameo appearances in both a McLaren and Mercedes AMG GT3’s, we welcome a fresh name to the Aston Martin camp as McLaren racer Lewis Proctor joins Howard for the first time in their #97 Silver-Am class entry for a grid that will comprise of twenty-nine cars.
If you can’t be at Donington Park in person, the Qualifying and race will of course be streamed live via the Championship’s social media channels.
Photo credits – Jacob Ebrey / Teams / D Gibson
