Snetterton round-up
Text & Images: Ian Cutting
Victories for Alex Martin and Sandy Mitchell in their Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini in race 1
while a post race penalty for the sister in race 2 handed victory to Kevin Tse and Maximillian Gotz in their 2 Seas' Mercedes. While in GT4 victories for Ravi Ramyead and Charlie Robertson in their Century BMW and Jack Brown and Zac Meakin in the Optimum McLaren. RAM Racing were also excluded from the weekend results.
Race 1
GT3
Rob Collard led the pack from pole with the sister Barwell Lamborghini behind and started to build a gap to the chasing pack. This was lead by Richard Neary in the Team Abba Racing Mercedes who had passed Ian Loggie on the first lap.
Loggie and Neary had a good fight and when Loggie tried to make a move as they exited Palmers, he was part on the grass part track and had to back off into the clutches of Giacomo Petrobelli and Sacha Kakad and fell behind the pair at Oggies.
All this helped the Barwell Lamborghini's move clear and as the pit stop window opened Collard had built up a lead of 3.5s. This wasn't quite enough to overturn the success penalty from Spa and Mitchell emerged in the lead once the pit stops had taken place as both crews pitted together.
Mitchell was able to build a lead over Ricky Collard and by the flag had a lead of 6.4s over the
sister Lamborghini. Despite pitting behind the Neary's Mercedes Jonny Adam rejoined ahead but that was due to short pit stop and therefore the Aston Martin had to serve a stop-go leaving Sam Neary in a position to claim the final step of the podium. Phil Keen tried to but Neary was able to keep Keen at arms length and claim P3.
GT3 winner #78 Barwell Motorsport
GT4
Aston Millar led the pack in their DTO Motorsport Ginetta from Mikey Porter's Aston Martin and started to move clear of the chasing pack, helped by the fight for P3 between Will Moore, Jack Brown and Marco Signoretti.
Both Millar and Porter stopped later than their rivals while Century Motorsport stopped as soon as they could. As a Pro-Am pairing they had a shorter time to serve in the stops and with Robertson putting in some quick laps they were now in P3. The shorter stop also helped propel Team Parker Racing into P2 from P7 behind the DTO Ginetta.
For the final 20 minutes the trio ran close setting up a great battle for the win.
Seb Morris tried to pass Freddie Tomlinson for the lead but instead had to defend from Robertson as he hassled the Mercedes. With three minutes left on the clock Robertson made his move at Coram and into P2.
Robertson put in a barnstorming lap to get on the tail of Tomlinson and got alongside of the Ginetta as they exited Murrays and running side by side down the start straight and underneath the chequered flag being readied for the GT3 Lamborghini just behind, and into the lead at Riches for the final tour of the Snetterton 300. Morris managed to claim the final podium spot just ahead of Jamie Day in the Aston Martin.
GT4 winner #71 Century Motorsport
Race 2
GT3
Mitchell managed to hang onto pole going into Riches from Keen, Gotz and Tom Gamble.
Meanwhile Neary suffered some turf surfing during the early stages of lap 1 and ended up down in P10 after starting P5.
As the pitstop window was about to close, Mitchell was already clear of Keen by 11s, as all the Pro's pitted as one. With a 10s success penalty to serve, this should have been enough to enable Martin to emerge out in front of the 2 Seas Mercedes.
However, 2 Seas had pushed Loggie back into the action in front of Martin and into the lead of the race. Race Control though weren't impressed and served a drive-through for Loggie. This meant that Martin was now out in front being chased by Tse. The Lamborghini driver got his head down and built up a lead. This though was soon wiped out as a Safety Car was sent out when the Toyota GT4 was stranded.
When racing resumed Martin benefitted from having three GT4 cars between himself and Tse and that was all he needed to claim the victory. However a drive-through converted to a 30s post race penalty for overtaking under yellow flag meant that victory went to Tse and dropped Martin down to P10.
RAM Racing's John Ferguson claimed the final podium at the restart, passing Mark Radcliffe. This would have been P2 with the penalty for the Lamborghini, but a post-race incident between team members and Race Control officials ended in both GT3 and GT4 cars being thrown out from the meeting.
GT3 winner #18 2 Seas Motorsport
GT4
Meakin starting from pole was concious of the chasing pack having to serve shorter pit stops got his head down to try and overturn the 14s extra time due to being a Silver pairing. The chasing pack was lead by Jordan Albert and both Forsetti Aston Martins. A collision between Robertson and Tomlinson resulted both cars retiring at the end of lap 1.
With the extra time to serve, Meakin was able to eek out a 6s gap by the time the pit window
opened. Meakin pitted early compared to his Pro rivals and hoped that Brown would have a great out-lap to help their cause.
By the time all the stops had been completed, Brown was in P3 behind the Pro-Am's of Marc Warren and new race leader Tim Docker in the Audi.
As Brown and Warren went into Murrays, he made his move and passed the Aston Martin into P2 and set off about chasing down Docker. With the Safety Car being sent out to recover the stricken Toyota, Brown was on Docker's bumper when racing resumed.
When racing restarted, Brown was soon past Docker and into the lead he wouldn't lose to the flag.
Docker however suffered damage to his Audi and ended the race at Agostini as the pack was
bunched up. Mikey Ported passed the sister Aston Marin to take P2 while Warren hung on to claim the final podium place.
GT4 winner #90 Optimum Motorsport
The next round is at Donington Park September 7th/8th and will a 3 hour race for the penultimate round of the season.
Comments