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

Already having received their GT4 Team’s Championship winning silverware ahead of today, the Norfolk based Forsetti Motorsport hold all the aces as far as further Aston Martin Racing powered championship win is concerned with their #7 Vantage GT4 crew of Mikey Porter and Jamie Day heading the overall and GT4 Silver classes whilst their #47 Vantage GT4 crew of Marc Warren and Will Orton do within their own GT4 Pro-Am class.

With testing and Free Practice results always hard to judge pace wise, it were the two Blackthorn AMR Vantage GT3 crews that pushed the pace during their two Qualifying sessions as first Giacomo Petrobelli and then Matt Topham pushed the GT3 Am leaders all the way to finish their ten-minute qualifying time P6 and P5 respectively. The #97 Beechdean AMR Vantage GT3 of Andrew Howard seemed never to get going within the greasy offline conditions to eventually finish P16 overall.

Next up were the higher graded GT3 drivers with Jonny Adam taking over the #87 Blackthorn car with both Josh Rowledge within the #10 car and Jessica Hawkins within the #97 Beechdean AMR car as their silver graded drivers.

Again, the Blackthorn cars performed well with their best lap times coming at the fourth time of asking, presenting the #10 with a cracking P6 overall and P1 in Silver-Am starting position with the #87 Pro-Am car of Petrobelli/Adam just behind in P7 overall (P6 in class) and with the #97 Beechdean car P16 overall and P6 in class.

Just ahead of the rains returning to the circuit, the GT4 class were able to run their two allotted ten-minute sessions with first Mikey Porter and Marc Warren out within their #7 Silver and #47 Pro-Am classed entries. Whilst Porter was only able to improve upon his previous lap times the once, Warren saw a succession of laps improve for time (time wise) for them to finish third and eighth respectively.

Then out came Jamie Day and with his first lap time secured the provisional pole position for the #7 car (bettered it again with his next lap) before saving their tyres ready for the race happy with his days work at the front of the GT4 queue. Orton was only marginally off Day’s times, but this time ran a four-lap session before timing out with an aggregated starting position of P4 overall but P1 in Pro-Am.

Sunday’s weather looks like there could be a lot more rainfall at the circuit before the race tomorrow but dryer from midday onwards for the race itself.

Wet or dry – it may not quite be the #DoningtonDecider that we all know but it might confirm who can control their nerves and who can’t!!

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media

Starting with them, the first year of operations of the Snetterton based Forsetti team has been something of a deserved minor miracle as drivers Mikey Porter and Jamie Day joined forces again (having raced together within the earlier GT4 Winter Series) within the #7 Silver class entry whilst Marc Warren and Will Orton changed chassis and series to pair up within their #47 Pro-Am entry.

Since that point, their combined results have been nothing short of remarkable considering two of those were racing within the GT4 level for the first time and rightly take the top slot within their respective class championship table going into this weekend’s two-hour penultimate race although the points margins to the chasing pack make things far from certain.

In addition to the usual event and championship aspirational pressures, both Forsetti crews will also have the additional issue of an extended pit stop minimum time to contend with in addition to their already stated minimums having finished on the podium last time out at Snetterton in mid-July.

Within the GT3 classes, however, there are unfortunately no such championship potential for any of the three Vantage GT3 entries from either the Blackthorn AMR or Beechdean AMR teams.

Swapping over to the new 2024 variant at the start of the season, the #97 Beechdean AMR team took a change in tack as Andrew Howard decided upon a Silver-Am entry alongside GT3 debutant Jessica Hawkins but then had to miss out the two available races at Snetterton to put paid to anything more than event success, just like they did last time out at Donington Park with a class third in race two.

That leaves the two Blackthorn AMR crews of the #10 Silver-Am car of Matt Topham and Josh Rowledge alongside the #87 Pro-Am entry of Giacomo Petrobelli and Jonny Adam.

Things started badly for the #10 crew after off’s at both the media day at Donington Park and then at the first day from Oulton Park saw them with little mileage under their belts (with car parts in short supply) and two DNS for the opening round. Things have thankfully improved for the crew with a steady stream of championship points that now sees them P4 in class albeit over a hundred points behind the already declared Silver-Am winners.

Finally, there is the #87 Vantage GT3 car of Petrobelli and Adam who have been struck down with a mixture of car underperformance and misfortune on track to never really threaten the GT3 podium (except for at Spa before a technical issue sidelined the car just before the end) to languish down in P8 in just a third of the points value of the present championship leader.

Will all pressures now removed from the GT3 crews; things will hopefully be a little more relaxed ahead of Sunday’s two-hour race.

Photo credits – Teams / Jacob Ebrey / social media

With the Beechdean AMR team sitting this one out, the AMR mantel was being carried by the two Vantage GT3 cars of the Blackthorn AMR team whilst the locally based Forsetti Motorsport team did likewise within GT4.

Thankfully, the rain of Friday night and Saturday morning had long since passed the Norfolk track as both of Sunday’s races took place under ideal conditions although the day did remain overcast and breezy.

Qualifying would see each driver set their respective starting positions and parity was established for race one as both the #10 and #87 Blackthorn cars would start P4 within each of their Silver-Am and Pro-Am classes respectively as would both Forsetti GT4’s would start P2 within their Silver and Pro-Am classes.

As relatively clean start would see good pace within the GT4 class whilst the #87 of Giacomo Petrobelli would move up to P4 on track whilst the #10 car of Matt Topham would drop to P10 overall just ahead of the pit stop window.

Missing their time marker by just a second was enough to destroy the chances of the #10 car as Jonny Adam would be forced to serve a drive through penalty whilst the sister #10 car moved up to P7 once the #87 pitted to serve that penalty.

The two Forsetti cars meanwhile were again running strongly, not strong enough to contend with the race leading Ginetta but with silver additional time for the #7 car of Jamie Day and Mikey Porter and success time penalties for the #47 Pro-Am car of Marc Warren and Will Orton – the running order would change by the time the pit window closed.

How it all panned out was for the #10 Vantage GT3 of Matt Topham and Josh Rowledge to win their second visit to the podium with a Silver-Am P3 finish (the #87 car would finish P12 overall (P8 in class) whilst the two Vantage GT4 runners would scope more championship points by finishing P4 overall for the #7 car (P2 in Silver Cup) with the #47 finishing P5 overall in GT4 (P3 in Pro-Am).

Just a couple of hours later, it was time to do it all again with the second driver per car this time taking the start.

Again, it was an orderly queue through the opening sequence of corners as the #10, #7 and #47 Aston Martins all started from similar grid positions of race one with the #87 car of Adam uncharacteristically down the order in P10 overall having also lost laps in Qualifying due to track limits.

There was opening drama for the Race 1 winning Ginetta and chasing BMW effectively took each other out of the race at only the end of the opening lap and that allowed each Forsetti GT4 crew to otherwise concentrate their efforts on chasing the pacey #90 McLaren Altura from their 3rd and 4th in class as both Rowledge and Adam struggled up front towards the rear of the GT3 pack.

At the start of the pit window, the #87 car of Adam was P11 overall and the #10 car of Rowledge was still P14 but the two Forsetti cars were still P3 and P4 albeit with the ‘lesser’ Pro-Am pairing within the #47 car ahead of the silver classed #7 car.

With just over a quarter of an hour remaining, a Safety Car was called to retrieve a second car stranded just off track on the infield and whilst that counted off for a lot of race time remaining it also closed the pack up again for the final five minutes.

Whilst good for the two AMR GT3 crews ahead looking to pass for position, it wasn’t so good for the two AMR GT4 crews looking to defend as there was the inevitable contact between cars at the restart.

Fortunately, not affecting the four Aston Martin Racing powered runners, the quick run to the flag saw the #87 car eventually finish P7 overall (P6 in class) with their sister #10 car finishing P12 overall (P4 in class).

It was better however in GT4 as the #78 car scooped another P2 overall (P2 in class) with the #47 crew improving to take another P3 overall finish to win their Pro-Am class again.

The next round of the Championship takes the teams back to Donington Park at the start of September.

Forsetti Motorsport were also later confirmed as 2024 GT4 Teams Champions.

Photo credits - Jacob Ebrey (podium shots) 

That still left the pair of Blackthorn AMR Vantage GT3’s of both Giacomo Petrobelli/Jonny Adam within the #87 car and Matt Topham/Josh Rowledge aboard the #10 car as well as the two Forsetti Motorsport AMR Vantage GT4’s of both Mikey Porter/Jamie Day aboard the #7 and Marc Warren/Will Orton aboard the #47 car.

Testing again on Friday in dry but windy conditions saw continuation of the performances found by all four cars at the previous round at Spa Francorchamps (even though the #87 car suffered technical failure) to post best lap times towards the head of the screen even though the GT3 runners were struggling with grip.

Torrential overnight rain again washed any rubber laid to welcome todays early runners with a very green Snetterton 300. Free Practice was at 09:30 and with an already damp track, the low hanging grey clouds threatened to dump yet more rain on the circuit.

Tentative opening laps from all, grip was again clearly an issue as only few cars within both classes appeared to be pushing the envelope before most cars sat in their boxes for at least ten minutes before coming out for the final quarter. Eventually, light rain did finally arrive – although not hard enough to effect set up but enough to again make the track more than ‘interesting’ in the words of Warren at the end of session.

The next session, now called Pre-Qualifying went much the same way although the cloud base had lifting, temperatures were rising, and the track was now dry. This time, all runners were on a charge as only four cars were able to circulate without exceeding track limits to have the lap time deleted but the Mercedes and Lamborghini’s were again the pick of the bunch in GT3 and the McLaren Artura and Lotus Emira quickest in GT4.

Finally Qualifying time after lunch and with this round being two-hour long sprint races on Sunday, each driver per car would Qualify their cars respective grid position per race. Starting as usual with the GT3 Am drivers, both Petrobelli and Topham went out first with the Italian eventually finishing fifth quickest (P4 in Pro-Am) with a lap time deleted whilst Topham went clean to finish P9 overall (P4 in Silver-Am).

Next up were the Pro’s with Adam and Rowledge doing the business and in a much more competitive field finished P14/P10 for the #87 of Adam and P14/P4 for the #10 car of Rowledge.

Then came the so far flying Aston Martin Vantage GT4’s from the Forsetti stable with both Warren and Porter up first within the #7 and #47 cars. By now perfect track conditions and not all dashing out with the pack gave both cars ideal track positioning as Porter claimed P2 overall behind the pace setting DTO Ginetta and with Warren coming home somewhat dissatisfied with his own performance P10 overall and P2 within their own GT4 Pro-Am class. 

That was rounded off with both Day and Orton looking to beat those performances and whilst neither could claim pole position, the #47 again stole the march on the #7 by beating them again to claim P4 overall (P2 in class) and with Day finally finishing P6 overall and P3 in class.

That all sets Sunday’s two races up rather nicely, but with both Forsetti cars having to serve additional time within pit lane during race 1, that will be a tough ask even for them.

This weekend, however, sees just four Aston Martin’s make their way up the A11 as the #97 Beechdean AMR of Silver-Am pairing Andrew Howard and Jessica Hawkins miss the event due to prior commitments (and not this time on Hawkin’s F1 side of the equation!)

This weekend’s entry list sees just thirty-three cars make the trip (compared to the thirty-six at the season opener) but with the usual full season protagonists still there including the two Vantage GT3 cars from the Blackthorn AMR and two Vantage GT4 cars from the Forsetti Motorsport teams.

Last month’s visit to Belgium was very much a bittersweet experience for the collective AMR runners as the #97 car of Howard was eliminated with damage at the opening corner whilst the #87 Blackthorn AMR GT3 of Jonny Adam and Giacomo Petrobelli suffered a late engine/transmission issue that robbed them of an otherwise podium pending position.

Whilst that was that the #10 Blackthorn AMR of Matt Topham and Josh Rowledge did secure their first Silver-Am pole position of the year which transferred into a P2 finish in class at the end.

The best results were however reserved for the GT4 class as the Snetterton based Forsetti team enjoyed another podium double for their #47 Pro-Am and #7 Silver Cup entries of Marc Warren/Will Orton and Mikey Porter/Jamie Day respectively.

Those results have seen the #10 car move up to P4 within the GT3 Silver-Am title chase, the #87 GT3 drop to P9 within the GT3 Pro-Am class whilst both Forsetti crews lead their respective drivers championships as well as the GT4 Teams Championship by nearly double the points to their nearest competitor.

Weather forecasts for the weekend presently show both Saturday and Sunday as being dry and possibly pushing up to 20 degrees on race day – so in other words, absolutely anything can happen and usually will!!

Photo credits – Jacob Ebrey / teams / social media

“Fresh” from their racing endeavours at Le Mans within the Michelin Le Mans Cup sees both Blackthorn cars return with their usual crew of Giacomo Petrobelli and Jonny Adam within their #87 Pro-Am car alongside their #10 Silver-Am GT3 of Matt Topham and Josh Rowledge.

They are again joined within the GT3 class by the #97 Beechdean AMR of Andrew Howard and Jessica Hawkins – a pairing that secured their first Silver-Am podium finish together at Donington Park.

Further back down the grid, but only marginally considering their combined speeds and efficiencies this season so far, are the two Forsetti Vantage GT4 cars of both Mikey Porter and Jamie Day within the Silver ranked #7 car alongside the #47 Pro-Am GT4 of Marc Warren and Will Orton.

These guys have been having something of a magical GT4 season together with both cars competing for overall GT4 class wins where the #47 car finished second overall last time out despite their Pro-Am status.

Based upon race results so far, the #87 Pro-Am GT3 entry sits just outside the top five in P6 whilst in GT3 Silver-Am, the Donington result for the #97 car thrusts them into the top five in class where Donington also saw the best result so far from the #10 Blackthorn crew in P7.

Then in GT4, the #7 Forsetti crew presently stand second in the Silver Class and first within the GT4 Pro-Am class as well as a commanding lead within the GT4 Teams Championship.

This weekend’s event in Belgium sees the Championship resort back to a single two-hour race format with the race beginning at 13:00hrs local but with just the #47 Forsetti car receiving a 15 second success penalty during one of their mandated stops in lieu of finishing second overall last time out.

Spa Francorchamps is great as we know – it’s usually eventful too!

Definitely forecasted ahead of the race, the rains arrived just as the thirty-eight strong grid were halfway around the lap, forcing Race Control to abandon that starting procedure to allow all to fit wet tyres ahead of its resumption.

For the three Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 powered teams from both Blackthorn AMR and Beechdean AMR, the rain mattered not to them considering their lowly Qualifying position from the Saturday’s dry sessions as the race eventually started from behind the Safety Car.

The two Forsetti Motorsport AMR Vantage GT4 cars were however, quickly on a charge with Jamie Day quickly pushing the leading McLaren and Ginetta’s for the class lead as the rains again stopped and the track appear to dry rather quickly too.

Having eventually taken the lead within GT4, the rains again returned – this time with a vengeance as Day’s efforts proved to be in vain as chaos at the opening corner involving at least eight cars saw the race being red flagged. That was bad news for the three Vantage GT3 cars of Giacomo Petrobelli / Jonny Adam, Matt Topham / Josh Rowledge and Andrew Howard / Jessica Hawkins as all had improved upon their respective Qualifying position positions. The two Forsetti GT4’s were holding P1 overall. For tehir #7 car and P1 in Pro-Am for their #47 car of Marc Warren and Will Orton.

All of this had happened with just one hour of the scheduled three-hour race having elapsed upon the race clock.

Eventually getting back to green after another length delay, the #7 car of Mikey Porter and Jamie Day had come to the attention of the stewards for an irregular pit stop requirement that would cost them both a sixty-four second stop and hold penalty and a shoot at the class win as a result.

Whilst Petrobelli’s #87 car got shoved around at the hairpin (through no fault of his own) and dropped down the order as a result, the #97 Beechdean Vantage GT3 had been slowly climbed the order still further to attain a top ten position overall with still an hour left to go.

The race then hit a period where lots of track action saw lots of Full Course Yellow and Safety Car restarts as others became stranded around the circuit. These of course help to close the gaps so that the #87 car was P9 overall (P8 in GT3 Pro-Am), the #97 P10 overall (P2 in Silver-Am) and the #10 car P15 overall (P6 in Silver-Am). The #47 GT4 was holding the lead of the overall class but had at least three rapid all silver crews bearing quickly down upon them with Porter recovering their position on track up to P8 overall.

With the extremities of the circuit still damp, there was little excitement that could be consumed by the viewer/spectator as the three-hour race was eventually concluded under bright and warming Spring sunshine.

Needing to dig deep after their Qualifying results on Saturday, that is precisely what the three Vantage GT3 crews did with the #87 finally finishing at the head of the trio for a deserved P9 overall finish (P8 in Pro-Am), the #97 Beechdean crew earning their first visit to the podium this season with a P11 overall (P3 in Silver-Am) finish with the #10 car eventually coming home P16 overall (P6 in Silver-AM).

The #47 Forsetti GT4 eventually came home P2 overall and P1 within their own Pro-Am class for a double podium celebration whilst their sister #7 car finished P7 overall (P5 in Silver) for yet more valuable Championship points.

A totally brilliant round, full of incident and sometimes accident but national GT racing at its best as the Championship now looks to its annual jaunt abroad to Spa Francorchamps towards the end of June.

Photo credits – AMR / Jacob Ebrey