AMR powered team success at latest British GT visit to Donington Park

Monday, September 09, 2024

Another thrilling two-hour encounter with the British GT Championship was to be seen yesterday as the thirty-five strong split GT3 and GT4 classes battled out what wasn’t quite another #DoningtonDecider, rather than created a near winner takes all scenario for the final round of the season at the end of the month.

Mother Nature had been playing with the teams over the earlier sessions to the race weekend with rain and gloomy conditions very prevalent over the Donington Park circuit but despite further rain during Sunday morning warm-up, the race itself was completed under glorious autumnal conditions.

For a change, both classes of Aston Martin Racing powered teams featured well during Saturdays Qualifying period as the #10 Blackthorn AMR Vantage GT3 crew of Matt Topham and Josh Rowledge secured the GT3 Pro-Am Pole position, whilst the two Forsetti Motorsport Vantage GT4 crews of both Mikey Porter/Jamie Day (#7 Silver) and Marc Warren/Will Orton (#47 Pro-Am) secured Pole positions of their respective classes, so it was game on right from the off as Forsetti had more to gain than most.

Unfortunately, that hope was very short lived for the #47 car of Warren as first, he was muscled off the track by the #90 McLaren to run through the gravel and down the order to last on the opening lap before further side to side contact with another car saw an unscheduled visit to pit lane for repairs. That lost the crew many laps and descended the rest of the race into something of a live testing session for the championship contending crew.

In a similar thread, the #10 Blackthorn car of Topham also found themselves being spun around from an unsuccessful overtaking move from behind at the final corner just fifteen minutes in that would drop them down to near the rear of the GT3 field. Having started sixth overall, this incident and a following puncture would ruin all of their hard work going into this event as the Silver-Am scraps was all that they could hope for.

Then on a positive note, the #87 Blackthorn car of Giacomo Petrobelli (with Jonny Adam) had moved up from P7 on the grid to be running third overall on pace before moving up another notch after one of the two Barwell Lamborghini’s had to pit with a puncture whilst the pole setting #7 Forsetti GT4 of Porter was also looking comfortable at the head of the GT4 field.

The #97 Beechdean AMR Vantage GT3 of Andrew Howard (with Jessica Hawkins) had already had an off in the wet of morning warmup but was slowly moving up the field as opportunities arose.

By the halfway stage, Petrobelli had run a cracking opening stint to hand his car over to recent birthday boy Adam from second overall – as did Porter to Day in GT4 whilst the #97 Beechdean car was now up to P4 in class with the #10 Blackthorn car (now with Rowledge) just behind.

Whilst the #47 Forsetti car of Orton was still cycling around, the #7 car’s hope of a race win was severely hampered with both their mandatory additional twenty-four seconds hold time for being a silver/silver crew plus the extra fifteen seconds form finishing second last time out. By the time that that was all over, Day had dropped to P7 overall in class but with another hour to go.

Just over half an hour remaining and a very wide course through the gravel at Redgate’s for Day saw further chins hit the floor within the team garage as it appeared that Aston upon Aston contact may have been the course of that excursion for Day and with the #97 Beechdean of Hawkins looking quite sheepish to that effect.

Then the race took its final set of twists as a Full Course Yellow was called for after the #55 Ginetta nose-dived into the tyre bales at the Melbourne hairpin after apparent brake issues. Thankfully, the driver was otherwise OK, but the caution took the remaining grid to just two racing laps at the end to decide matters.

Thankfully, Adam got to enjoy a much deserved belated birthday present after he brough the #87 Blackthorn car home in second overall after some great progress from Petrobelli in the opening laps whilst the #97 Beechdean GT3 of Howard and Hawkins also benefitted from a late off (puncture) from the Abba Racing Mercedes to move up onto the final step of the GT3 Silver -Am podium again (despite a post-race time penalty affecting their finishing time/not their finishing position) whilst the #7 Forsetti car of Porter and Day scrapped out another Silver class P3 finish at the end to help keep their title hopes alive. The #10 Blackthorn car eventually finished a respectable P9 overall and P4 in class despite what had happened to them on track with the #47 Forsetti car listed as P29/P11, nine laps down.

Championship wise – it’s still all about the two Forsetti GT4 crews as Porter and Day still lead the overall GT4 Drivers Championship by 3.5 points, the same within their Silver Cup class but by 15 points whilst Warren and Orton see their GT4 Pro-Am class lead drop to 6.5 points all with just the Championship’s visit to Brands Hatch.

Photo credits – Team / Series / social media