British GT returns north to Donington Park for the first 2 hour race of the year
Wednesday, May 24, 2023
After a pair of one long sprints to open the season at Oulton Park over easter weekend, Silverstone’s three-hour enduro invited other AMR equipped teams out to play with one, the Century Motorsport AMR Vantage GT4 of David Holloway and Bradley Ellis earning themselves a GT4 Pro-Am Class podium for their efforts.
We also saw the first running of the new Vantage GT3 belonging to the Blackthorn Motorsport team at the Silverstone 500, which they did eventually finish considering that weekend was their first interaction with their new car since taking delivery of it from Prodrive earlier that week.
Despite testing recently at the circuit, neither guesting teams will be at Donington for this weekend’s opening two-hour affair as that honour is again left to the two full season entries from both Beechdean AMR and R-Racing.
With torrential rain affecting and eventually washing out Qualifying at Silverstone, earlier Free Practice times were taken to set the grid order with the #97 Beechdean Vantage GT3 of Andrew Howard and Ross Gunn claiming P4 within their Pro-Am class and the #27 R-Racing Vantage GT4 of Josh Miller and Seb Hopkins claiming P3 within their Silver Cup class.
Unfortunately, track limit issues blighted the running of the #23 car with the #97 car developing something of an unhealthy relationship with the guesting Inception Racing McLaren to move them along the order to eventually come home just off the overall podium in fourth whilst the #23 car would eventually recover to finish fifth in class.
These results see the #97 crew tied for second within the overall GT3 Drivers Championship, just 7.5 points behind the Silverstone 500 winning BMW but with a more consistent set of results over the three races so far. Within the GT4 class, the #23 cars early DNF in race 1 from Oulton Park plus a lowly points finish at Silverstone sees them in urgent need of points going into Donington as lying down in P11 within the overall GT4 Drivers table.
Early indications remain that Mother Nature should be upon our side this time around with warm and dry running forecasted over the private testing of Friday and well as the official session of both Saturday and Sunday for the expected thirty-four strong GT3/GT4 grid.
Photo credits – Teams / Jacob Ebrey
