A cold and foggy morning at Snetterton turned to a brighter and warmer afternoon as the majority of British GT’s capacity 2017 grid took to the track together for the first time.
Concerns over the future of GT3 participation in British GT over the winter have proved unfounded, with nine cars turning out Tuesday and others confirmed for the season. Championship manager Benjamin Franissovici is expecting additional race-by-race entries at Silverstone and Spa, the latter round in particular having frequently attracted those in search of extra track time before the Spa 24 Hours in previous seasons.
Reigning champions Derek Johnston and Jonny Adam are back to defend their title in the TF Sport Aston Martin and the line-up is unchanged for the team’s second Vantage, too, with Mark Farmer and Jon Barnes looking to build on their victory at Spa last year. Johnston told DSC at Snetterton: “The car is identical to how it ran at Donington last time out, the only change is Pirelli has tweaked the tyre slightly to last better in the races. I’m looking forward to running a little bit longer in the races and just the competition in general, the competitiveness is why I’m here, I love it.”
Adam will be looking for a third British GT title on the trot this year, having triumphed with Johnston last season and Andrew Howard in 2015. “This year everyone has upped their game,” he said. “We’re aiming to keep up our consistency through the middle part of the season, which we didn’t have last year. We’ve done some testing over the winter to try to understand the new tyre and it seems to suit the Aston. It works well for a front-engined GT and gives us a little extra stability under braking.”
At Barwell Motorsport, Liam Griffin is looking forward to establishing a partnership with fellow touring-car convert Sam Tordoff having had no less than three co-drivers during 2016. “The Lamborghini is a lovely car to drive, as ever,” he told us. Tordoff is clearly enjoying finding his feet GTs and the British championship this year sees him racing against his former driver coach from his Clio Cup days in the shape of Johnny Adam.
An attempt to get 24-hour race practice in Dubai in January ahead of tackling the Spa 24 Hours later in the year came to naught when the HB Racing Huracan caught fire 90 minutes in before Tordoff could even drive a stint, but he will be out in the Silverstone 24 Hours this weekend in a Sorg Rennsport BMW M235i. “It’s just to get used to the whole 24-hour racing setup, getting up at two in the morning and going into a stint,” he explained. “There’s so much about this that’s the new to me, the speed is higher, the coaching aspect with an am driver is something I’ve never done before. Things were getting stale for me in touring cars, so I needed a new challenge, a bit of a kick up the arse really, and I think GTs are it.”
Alongside Barwell’s pair of Lamborghinis and TF’s two Astons, there are two newly upgraded Ginetta G55 GT3s from Century Motorsport, now running the Chevrolet engine from the G57 prototype and both with a promisingly talented young American on board, Parker Chase with works driver Charlie Robertson in one and Harry Gottsacker with marque stalwart Nathan Freke in another.
Team Parker’s effective combination of Seb Morris and Rick Parfitt Jr returns unchanged in a Bentley Continental GT3, with Ian Loggie and Calum Macleod joining the effort in a second car following the Blancpain exploits in recent seasons. There’s a third GT3 Aston on the grid, too, courtesy of Macmillan Racing, plus a pair of Mercedes-AMG GT3s, one for the AmD Tuning pair of Lee Mowle and Ryan Ratcliffe.
Notable GT3 absentees from the media day were the Duncan Cameron/Matt Griffin Ferrari 488, the Richard Neary/Martin Short Mercedes-AMG GT and the second Barwell Lamborghini Huracan of Jon Minshaw/Phil Keen, all opting for alternative pre-season testing arrangements.
GT4 this year has the look of “McLaren versus the rest” with no less than six of the Woking machines entered for the full season. One of the two planned Garage 59/Black Bull cars wasn’t quite ready in time for Tuesday’s event, so Sandy Mitchell and Ciaran Haggerty ran in the 570S GT4 development car, with newcomers Akhil Rabindra and Dean MacDonald in the other. A final piece of the entry-list jigsaw was also confirmed at Snetterton with Marcus Hoggarth and James Birch named as drivers in the second of two In2Racing McLarens, joining the previously confirmed Richard Marsh and BTCC ‘old boy’ Gareth Howell in the other 570S.
In addition to its two Bentleys, Team Parker Racing is running the lone GT4 Porsche on the grid, now in fully homologated ‘MR’ specification after a challenging development year in 2016. Nick Jones was handling all driving duties on Tuesday, with Scott Malvern absenting himself to attend the funeral of John Surtees. “We ran pretty much the full kit at a GT Cup round last year, but we’re still learning and tweaking a few things,” Jones told us. “We’re probably the least powerful of the GT4s so we’re really struggling for straight-line speed, particularly against the McLarens. We’d really like to score a podium at some point, however it comes to us.”
Another man wary of the McLaren threat is reigning GT4 champion (with Graham Johnson) Mike Robinson. Like Johnson and Adam in GT3, the duo are back to defend their title in 2017 in the unchanged package of the PMW Expo/Optimum Motorsport Ginetta. “The GT4 field has got even younger, so beating the ‘kids’ again is going to be an even bigger challenge,” he said. “We’ll just have to work harder, losing to us could be a bit of a career wrecker for them, as at the end of the day this is just our hobby, we do it for fun.”
Ginetta has upgraded the G55 GT4 for 2017, adding ABS, traction control and a power boost to what had been one of the most ‘old-school’ GT4s on the grid. “It’s about 33bhp more but after mapping, looking at the data our top speed is no higher,” admitted Robinson. “We’re hitting the limiter at places like Silverstone and Spa, so we’ll be focused on scoring wins early in the season at places like Oulton, Brands and Rockingham where we should be stronger. We were on the podium six out of nine rounds last year and we want something similar again.”
Also running Ginettas is the Team Hard-run Autoaid/RCIB Insurance Racing outfit, with former overall British GT champion Michael Caine in one car, paired with Mike Newbould. The other car saw a last-minute change to its line-up, with Matt Chapman taking the place of Howard Fuller alongside Sam Webster. Team boss Tony Gilham confirmed that Fuller would remain a part of his team’s plans for 2017, but that he would no longer feature in its British GT programme.
Competing the Ginetta roster in GT4 is Century Motorsport, with a pair of cars bringing its season total to four including the GT3s, junior series graduate HHC Motorsport and Lanan Racing, which wasn’t present at the media day.
Joining the Yorkshire marque in battling the McLarens will be a pair of RJN-run Ultratek Racing Nissan 370Z GT4s. Team principal Bob Neville is looking forward to getting a full British GT season under the car’s belt and professed confidence that SRO’s Balance of Performance would achieve parity between the newer McLarens and the older GT4 machinery on the grid.
Also in GT4 are Aston Martins from Macmillan and Academy Motorsport, plus additional McLarens from Tolman Motorsport and Track-Club. A late appearance on the media day entry was the Ebor GT Maserati GT4. The team confirmed to DSC that a deal to run Matty Graham and James Kellett in the fan-favourite car is “90% done” and they’re hoping to be out at the season opener in Oulton if everything falls into place.
The GPRM Toyota GT86 is also on the full-season entry list issued Tuesday, with two yet-to-be confirmed drivers.
The final Balance of Performance ahead of Oulton has not yet been issued, so many teams were running either an end-of-2016 setup or a ‘best guess’ as to what their situation would be at the opening round. A predictable mixture of new and used tyres was also being used, leaving little or no conclusions to be drawn from the day’s lap times.
Featured image courtesy of British GT
