The British GT Championship’s annual visit to the north-west of the UK and the Oulton Park circuit never usually fails to disappoint in terms of simple racing spectacle and this Bank Holiday Monday’s race day was no different.
This year delayed within the season from its more traditional Easter weekend to that of the late May Bank Holiday weekend, saw the GT3 and Gt4 teams that did make the journey up the M6 tested to the maximum as blustery but dry conditions within the first hour long sprint race were soon replaced with a wet-drying-wet format within the second.
Having set the respective grids way back on a warmer and sunnier Saturday afternoon, the Blackthorn AMR and Beechdean AMR Aston Martin Racing powered crews were welcomed back to much cooler track conditions with the possibility of rain very much upon the cards.
Giacomo Petrobelli had qualified his #7 Blackthorn car onto the front row of the grid whilst Andrew Howard was further back in twelfth overall but more importantly P2 within his two-horse silver-am battle with the Honda.
Disaster would unfortunately suffer further class pain as opening corner contact saw his #97 consigned to the side of the track, nursing a rear puncture and whilst he would later return to the track and complete the race alongside co-driver Tom Wood – they would ultimately finish second in class to the #86 Bridger Motorsport Honda.
Meanwhile, the #7 Aston Martin of Petrobelli and Jonny Adam would have the pace to maintain their P2 position overall and was quickly approaching the end of his minimum drive time when the leading GT4 car spun out and hard into the barrier at Deer Leap to bring out the Safety Car.
Circulating under yellows, the GT3 pack pitted next time around but it was another fifteen minutes before the race got back to green after the #7 had served its five second success penalty awarded to it after its Silverstone result – something that dropped the car down to P4 upon exiting pit lane.
Going into the final minutes of the race, and with Adam setting the then fastest laps of the race in P3, it was all too close to call as 1-2-3-4 placed cars were all within a couple of cars lengths to one another as the #7 car eventually grabbed P3 overall at the end for another visit to the podium.
Race two later in the afternoon was, however, a different matter as rain was now falling, the track was distinctly wet but the selection over wets or slicks wasn’t exactly clear cut. With Adam this time taking the start from P5 and Wood again on class pole position in P10, it was surprisingly another clean start for the opening laps.
Conditions on track were quickly changing as many elected to stop and remove their wet tyres although both Aston Martins resisted the temptation in doing the same. As the laps passed by, those on slicks were initially quicker than those on wets but that was soon reverted as more rain came which forced those on slicks to seriously reconsider.
As the pit window opened, both Aston Martin’s were running within the top five with Adam in P3 and Wood in P5 but after their respective stops (which the #7 again had an additional five seconds to serve from its race 1 results) saw them emerge in P4 and the Beechdean of Howard now in sixth.
This time, there was no second leg push from the #7 Blackthorn car as they eventually had to settle for P4 overall but for the Beechdean crew, they had to watch an increasingly faster #86 Honda not just take another class win but also simply drive past others, like the #7 Blackthorn to score its first P3 finish overall – a worrying trend for the AMR crew as the season moves forward onto Spa Francorchamps in just over three weeks’ time.
Photo credits – Jacob Ebrey
