If one thing can be guaranteed in the Avon Tyres British GT3 Championship is that anything can happen. The championship leading Barwell Ecurie Ecosse BMW Z4 of reigning champion Marco Attard and his aspiring Pro pairing Alexander Sims came to Donington with no assurance of the driver’s title, however the outcome was certainly in their favour. What was expected was a hard fight between them and their main championship rivals Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam in the Beechdean AMR Aston Martin, with the Oman Racing pairing of Liam Griffin and Rory Butcher more than an outside bet.
That two of these entries would be out of the race before their Pro drivers were even able to take their seats denied the championship of the last round thriller these teams had built up to. And despite a much deserved 1-2 for the TF Sport team, the conclusion of the 2015 season will probably be remembered for its circumstances more than its outcome.
At the rolling start pole sitter Andrew Jarman led his TF Sport Aston Martin away confidently into the first turn at Redgate, Lee Mowle’s Triple Eight Racing BMW muscling into second, disposing of Andrew Howard’s Beechdean Aston Martin who was treating his start with an understandable degree of restraint.
Championship rival Marco Attard laid his marker down from fifth on the grid too. A great start pushed him past Howard, light contact made as the Beechdean driver tried to defend. Howard lost ground, back into the clutches of Derek Johnston’s #17 TF Sport Aston Martin which had started alongside Attard. Ross Wylie’s #10 VonRyan McLaren was also ganging up on the Beechdean car but it was Liam Griffin who made the biggest improvement, moving the #6 Oman Racing Aston Martin into fourth, improving four places from its grid position and serving notice that any opportunity for the championship would be maximised.
Attard however suffered a significant setback. Spinning under pressure from Derek Johnston’s TF Sport Aston Martin, the #1 car dropped out of the top ten. Contact had occurred, this coming under investigation by the race stewards, but no action was taken. Effectively the loss of ten seconds for the Ecurie Ecosse BMW halved the pressure on the Beechdean crew for the mandatory 20 seconds success penalty due after their Snetterton victory.
Jon Minshaw’s Demon Tweeks Barwell BMW had a role to play and got past Wylie’s McLaren, to join the fight at the front. Johnston continued his assault, the #17 car clearly in form, moving on to the back of Lee Mowle for third and setting fastest lap of the race so far in his pursuit.
As things started to settle the top ten was:
#27 TF Sport Aston Martin
#888 Triple Eight Racing BMW
#17 TF Sport Aston Martin
#6 Oman Racing Aston Martin
#007 Beechdean Aston Martin
#63 Barwell BMW
#30 RAM Racing Mercedes
#10 VonRyan Racing McLaren
#44 LNT Ginetta
#2 Oman Racing Aston Martin
Bradley Ellis in the #30 Mercedes was doing a great job, the ‘Pro’ driver amongst the ‘Ams’ and steadily moving through the field. By far the most visible in his progress he was next past Jon Minshaw for sixth. Having started on the seventh row of the grid the 2007 champion was looking very much at home in the RAM entry as a late call up. At the back, Steve Tandy was trying to elevate his LNT Ginetta, passing Hector Lester’s Ferrari and Mark Farmer’s Aston Martin as the GT3 cars started to close in on traffic.
The first drama in the race occurred as Liam Griffin’s #6 Aston Martin collected Lee Mowle’s #888 BMW. Trying for a gap on the inside at the Melbourne Hairpin the #6 Aston bundled into the Triple Eight Racing car before taking to the grass on the outside. Griffin recovered the car but terminal damage to its front right suspension meant retirement, Griffin and Butcher’s outside shot at the driver’s championship over.
But this soon paled in significance as Jamie Chadwick’s GT4 Beechdean Aston Martin turned in on Marco Attard’s recovering #1 BMW at the same location, the Melbourne hairpin the focus of many an outbraking move this weekend. The Ecurie Ecosse car was badly unsettled as the GT4 Aston turned into its left hand side, sent into the tyre wall on the exit of the hairpin. Despite the relatively low speed of the turn the impact was heavy. Extensive frontal damage forced the championship leading BMW out, Attard getting out of the car with some difficulty and looking understandably dejected. That it was the GT4 team mate of the car that was now looking to cruise to a GT3 championship may have seemed controversial, but the young GT4 champion was clearly uncomfortable with her circumstances post race. This may have been her mistake, but it was also a racing incident to some extent.
This left a TF Sport Aston 1-2, Mowle having recovered after the contact with Griffin’s Oman Racing Aston in third. The GT3 Team’s championship was now down to a shoot-out between the surviving #2 Oman Racing Aston Martin and the #63 Barwell BMW.
As Marco Attard’s season concluded and the Safety Car was deployed the GT3 positions were:
27 / 17 / 888 / 30 / 007 / 63 / 10 / 2 / 44 /22 / 32 / 11 / 21.
This spoiled Jarman’s effort at the front in the #27 car, his lead eroded as green flag racing commenced.
Bradley Ellis was straight onto Lee Mowle, making a clean pass into Melbourne for third (that this was a clean pass was noticeable given recent events..!) Mowle fought back though with Ellis nearly outbraking himself into Goddards, but the Mercedes just held on to the position. The #888 BMW had a visibly loose RH door, probably the outcome of its earlier incident. Ellis pushed on, setting his fastest lap of the race, 1:30.837. Jarman’s comparison was 1:30.216 as the TF Sport Aston created a three seconds advantage at the front, second placed Derek Johnston now with Ellis’s Mercedes right on his tail. Lee Mowle was still fourth, though had dropped three seconds back from the scrap, with Andrew Howard sitting in a comfortable fifth place having no doubt heard the news, settling into laps in the 1:31’s.
Further back, Ross Wylie lined up his McLaren on Jon Minshaw going into Redgate but was held off. Wylie made the move for sixth stick on the next lap, but the late braking move nudged the McLaren into the GT4 Lotus of Tim Eakin in the process. Though sixth place was Wylie’s the move was under investigation.
Derek Johnston was reeling in the leader, now a second off the back of his team mate as the pit lane opened. Lee Mowle was the first visitor, the car’s RH door indeed hanging open. A huge slab of gaffa tape was applied crudely by a mechanic as the remedy, the car showing plenty of battle scars elsewhere at the half way mark. Howard came in for his hand over to Jonny Adam, their 20 second penalty carefully taken, resuming 10th on the road.
Johnston and Ellis, who had been struggling with rear end grip towards the end of his stint, pitted as Jarman tried hard to post faster laps to claw any sort of advantage in clear air. Interestingly, the #2 Aston of Ahmad Al Harthy had also delayed his stop, this being a tactic used to effect in the past, the Oman Racing Team needed any advantage they could get to hang on to their hope of the Team’s championship, though Al Harthy’s grip on the GT3 Silver Cup looked safe pending no further drama. In reply to this, Phil Keen posted fastest of the race, 1:29.618 on his first flyer. This accolade was soon taken over by Benny Simonsen in the Rosso Verde Ferrari; a 1:29.273, which he traded for a couple of laps with Matt Bell’s Aston Martin. The #17 TF Sport car now held the net lead, Godfrey Jones’s #22 Mercedes ahead on the road but the last to stop. Jody Fannin had taken over the previously leading #27 car, but was now four seconds behind his TF team mate.
Andrew Jarman: “The dreaded safety car came out and it’s good to see that Marco is OK, but that effectively undid all our hard work. I pushed hard before the stops but couldn’t quite make up enough time.”
Tom Oliphant returned the #44 Ginetta to the pits almost as soon as he had taken it over, the car having gear selection problems. Though they returned to the race, the car was eventually left with a single gear and retired, ending a challenging year for the #44 LNT entry.
Jonny Adam was now moving up through the top ten, currently ninth, the driver’s championship in sight. The #30 RAM Mercedes was now fourth, Lewis Plato aboard, but fourteen seconds behind Joe Osborne’s rather second hand looking Triple Eight BMW in third. Daylight was visible through the right rear quarter from some angles, but its third place looked well nailed down at this stage.
With 50 laps completed and 40 minutes to go, the top ten was:
#17 (50 laps) / #27 (+8.2s) / #888 (+ 9.4s) / #63 (+15.9s) / #30 (+7.7s) / #10 (+0.23s) / #007 (+0.46s) / #32 (+3.1s) / #2 (+4.7s) / #21 (+2.5s).
Adam took sixth from Andrew Watson’s McLaren a lap later, now looking fairly handy for the Beechdean double. Benny Simonsen’s performance was entertaining, having the fastest lap of the race the Dane was pressing on, relieving Jon Barnes’ 22GT Aston Martin of ninth and now less than two seconds behind the McLaren of Andrew Watson, whose McLaren was right up with the RAM Mercedes. A lunge into the chicane didn’t work too well, Lewis Plato being rather unfairly punted off track, the scrambling McLaren allowing Simonsen through to sixth. At this point the top six in GT3 looked fairly well pegged out, Matt Bell’s lead now up to 13 seconds from team mate Fannin, who held Osborne’s #888 BMW five seconds behind. Keen’s Barwell BMW was fifteen seconds behind in fourth, this looking good enough for Barwell Motorsport to take the GT3 Team’s championship.
With less than ten minutes to go Joe Osborne was eyeing Fannin’s second place. A bullish charge had reduced the gap to three seconds, but he had tapped the #2 Oman Racing Aston Martin in his progress, Alex MacDowall was spun around, losing two places in his recovery. Jody Fannin had the call that Osborne was closing the gap and got on the gas, pulling the #27 car to within five seconds of the leader before encountering traffic at the dreaded Melbourne hairpin. Osborne tried hard but lost the #888 BMW: “ I saw that Jody was getting held up and went for the gap on the inside. But I was lacking a bit of grunt out of the corner and didn’t quite have enough to make it through. Unfortunately it got a bit physical and we were bumping and pushing out of the corner with me coming off worse.”
This would let Phil Keen through for the final podium place, which would also clinch the GT3 Team’s championship for Barwell.
So the #17 TF Sport Aston Martin of Matt Bell went on to take the win from team mate Jody Fannin.
Fifth place for Jonny Adam though was more than enough for him and Andrew Howard to take the GT3 Driver’s Championship. “It’s amazing,” Howard told us, “All weekend I really didn’t expect this to happen. It was always going to be a difficult call with strategy and I tried to stay out of trouble at the start. Yes, we had some luck and it’s not the way we wanted to take the title, but that is racing and it’s a great reward for the team’s efforts all year.”
Jonny Adam: “Firstly, commiserations to Marco, Alex and the Barwell team. We had a lot of luck today. Congratulations to Andrew and the team, they deserve it, and for me it feels great. We did have a strategy to take on the fight in the second half of the race, but after the safety car we were ninth and happy to get into the position we needed to. There are some big braking zones around here and we were concerned about conserving the car to the finish, particularly in the last sector.”
Andrew Jarman: “Safety cars are becoming a bit of a theme for us, I’m sure one day they’ll go away. At the start I just got my head down really, then we had the course caution and had to do it all again. We had a good car all weekend and a 1-2 for TF Sport is a great result.”
Jody Fannin: “On the last lap I came up on four cars and I was thinking ‘why me?’, ‘why now?’, so it got a bit fraught with Joe Coming up on the inside. Joe knows what he’s doing though, even though he came off worse and I escaped. We’ve worked hard to get performance and consistency with this car and it’s come good over the last few races. A great weekend for the team and I really hope I can be part of whatever they may decide for next year.”
Matt Bell: “An almost perfect race: it probably looked alright but it was actually quite stressful. We were having quite high fuel consumption. I had no radio; it was really crackly and all I would get every five or six laps as I crossed the line was “Fuel Save, Fuel Save…” It got really frustrating because I couldn’t query it and couldn’t receive any more information either. I was monitoring the car all the time and towards the end I managed to get some clarification, but it was really stressing me not knowing. I was very happy to see the chequered flag.
It’s a superb result for the team, but it has been on the cards all year really. We’ve always shown race pace, it’s the Saturdays we have always needed to work on, and we’ve finally got that sussed towards the end of the year, which makes the Sundays a little bit easier as well.
Nothing has been talked about yet, but I would love us to use this as a springboard for next year.”
Martin Little
