Forsetti reign supreme in GT4 at British GT opener from Oulton Park
Monday, April 01, 2024
By that, we obviously mean from the Norfolk based Forsetti Motorsport team who had both of their new AMR Vantage GT4 crews upon the podium after each of today’s one-hour races, through some horrible track conditions at their first time of asking in the Championship.
Taking the decision to start their 2024 endeavours off down in southern Europe based GT4 Winter Series proved fruitful for both their crews of Jamie Day/Mickey Porter and Marc Warren/Will Orton as their rain experience down in Portugal and Spain paid off in Cheshire today with the #7 Silver Cup entry of Porter/Day secured a double class win whilst their #47 Pro-Am stable mates finished P2 both times within their class.
These were the first class wins for the new 40A version of the Vantage GT4 since its official launch earlier this year.
Whilst the Aston Martin GT4’s seemed to be commanding the ever-changing track conditions and incidences taking place upon that changing track, it was something of a different tale for the three Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT 3 crews.
Thankfully, the damage caused to the #10 Blackthorn car of Matt Topham and Josh Rowledge was repaired by the team over the intervening Easter Sunday window which allowed them to get their first real feel for the circuit in the rain-soaked morning warm up.
Keeping the older 16A specification on the black stuff, that duo were at least able to get one GT3 Silver-Am finish in P7 but would register a DNF for just after the pit stop when Topham lost the #10 car coming out of turn 1 and contacted heavily into the barrier again this weekend.
The teams #87 Pro-Am pairing of Jonny Adam and Giacomo Petrobelli again had to work had with connection between them and the car as well as the car and the circuit compared to the significantly faster Lamborghini and Mercedes platforms ahead. Over a decade since his last race at the circuit, the Italian did well to just keep his car in contention during the wetter opening race, but he and Adam had to contend with a P9 and P10 finishes in class for their efforts after an enforced spin for Adam from a car behind coming onto the pit straifght dropped the car down further than where it was running in earnest at the time.
That left the solo 2024 specification Beechdean AMR Vantage GT3 of Andrew Howard and a championship debuting Jessica Hawkins.
Changing to the GT3 Silver-Am class this year with the new car and a new co-driver, it was a whole lot of new for the team to contend with nut AMR help was on hand within the garage as former team racer and AMR factory driver Darren Turner helped out from the back of the garage.
Never setting the timing screens alight like the faster Pro-Am front runners, Hawkins did what she needed to do to bring the car home each time in her first competitive GT3 race meeting to help them accumulate valuable class points by finishing P6 and P5 in class over the two races. Howard also attained the fastest lap of the weekend to earn himself a solo visit to the podium.
The Championship will now travel south at the end of the month to visit one of their fastest (and longest) races of the year with the Silverstone 500.
Photo credits – Jacob Ebrey / AMR (D Gibson) / teams
