British GT ramps up for a not quite a #doningtondecider this weekend (UPDATED)

It’s time for the British GT Championship to start ramping up the temperatures within all of its available classes as this weekend sees the penultimate round of the season from Donington Park. Not quite the infamous #doningtondecider this time around but again, results from this two-hour race will prove pivotable for some going into the final round from Brands Hatch later this month.

One thing the teams and crew will not be missing this time around will be the recent repressive heat of summer of late with more seasonable temperatures and track conditions now expected for this weekend.

 

Today’s provisional entry list confirms all of the usual full season Aston Martin Racing powered entries but this time with a caveat over the #97 GBR Stratton Motorsport AMR Vantage GT4 crew as (at the moment) just John Hartshorne is being listed. Last time out at Snetterton, it was Jonny Adam who filled the gap in lieu of Ronan Pearson who we understand to have come across some budgetary issues but this time around – Adam is already committed to his Heart of Racing duties within the FIA World Endurance Championship in America.

Looking back two weeks to those two races in Norfolk, it was a perfect performance from the #27 Grange Racing with FSR Vantage GT4 team of Dan Lavery and Darren Turner as they scooped two class wins for their efforts to lead their Pro-Am class and be in close contention with the GT4 Drivers overall championship as well.

 

For the #21 MK Racing Vantage GT4 duo of Will Orton and Jessica Hawkins, consistency again proved its worth as a class P2 finish in race one and then a P3 class finish in race two sees them retain a now slender lead within the GT4 Overall Drivers standing as well as maintain the same points difference to their closest rivals within both their GT4 Silver class and GT4 Teams championship stakes.

The #40 Townsend Racing by Fox Motorsport AMR crew of James Townsend and Joe Wheeler celebrated something of a better performance in the heat of Norfolk after a P6 Pro-Am finish in race one was backed up with a deserved P3 podium finish in race two to now be just a handful of points behind Hartshorne. A double P5 finish for him in both races sees him lose a bit of ground to his rivals with the top three crews more than thirteen points ahead.

 

Finally in GT3, we have recently seen the confirmation from Beechdean AMR’s boss Andrew Howard of his intention to step back from high level competitive racing at the end of the season as he and co-driver Ross Gunn look to notch up another class championship win for themselves by the end of the Brands Hatch finale.

A P4 finish in race one but dropping valuable points through errors in race two saw the pairing having to make do with a P3 result in that race sees the #007 crew drop twenty-five points to the new GT3 Pro-Am class leaders as well as dropping to fifth within the Overall championship so for this crew – a decent result at Donington Park will be key to their final race campaign but the team will have an additional ten second stop at their designated driver change in lieu of their podium finish last time out. The #27 and #21 Vantage GT4 crews will also have an additional fifteen seconds of stop time added for Donington for the same reason.

 

Track action will begin on Thursday with private testing before Free Practice, Pre-Qualifying and combined Qualifying on Saturday before the start to this penultimate two hour affair starting at 13:30hrs local on Sunday.