Rob Collard and Hugo Cook served up victory for the Barwell Motorsport outfit, resisting pressure from the chasing pack, during the opening British GT Championship race of the day at Oulton Park this morning
Collard took the outright lead from pole position in the GT3 group, with Giacomo Petrobelli settling into second position at the wheel of the Blackthorn Aston Martin he co-pilots with Jonny Adam. The full field negotiated a lively start which saw several cars run wide over the kerb at Old Hall.
From there, Collard remained at the head of the pack throughout the opening stint with Petrobelli just behind and Kevin Tse third in the 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG he would later hand over to Maximilian Götz.
A watchful first half of the race ensued, with the leaders circulating close to each other without making moves, though there was drama for some of those further back. Andrew Howard’s Aston Martin came to a halt on the first lap, and though he was able to get it rolling again it was essentially removed from overall contention.
Morgan Tillbrook was another to suffer misfortune, getting sideways through the chicane at Brittens in his McLaren, whilst Simon Orange went off the road at Old Hall in his similar machine after clashing with Charles Dawson in their fight for fourth.
A ferocious scrap for the GT4 class lead began to unfold too, in a manner which would ultimately impact all competitors on the circuit. Ravi Ramyead defended the lead during the initial stages, following a retirement for the pole sitting Lotus of Josh Miller and Aiden Neate, from Luca Hopkinson.
Hopkinson, at the wheel of one of Optimum Motorsport’s McLaren Arturas, was all over the back of Ramyead’s Century Motorsport BMW until the leading GT3 pack began to lap them. In quick succession, Hopkinson lost a place to the sister Optimum entry of Marc Warren, before Ramyead went off and collided with the Armco at Shell whilst allowing GT3 machinery through.
This caused the race to enter a full course yellow period which would ultimately run throughout the mid-race pit stop window. With Ramyead and co-driver Charlie Robertson now out of the picture, this left Warren to hand over the GT4 class lead to his teammate Jack Brown.
Further up the road in GT3, Cook inherited the lead from Collard but Götz took over from Tse in second with Petrobelli and Adam’s car exiting the pits third. Kiern Jewiss was fourth on the road at this point, assuming the controls of his Mercedes-AMG from Dawson, but the car was handed a time penalty for its earlier altercation with Orange.
Full speed racing resumed with just over 20 minutes still on the clock and it was a high pressure run-in to the line with Götz remaining firmly on Cook’s tail. As the race entered its final laps, Cook had both Götz and Adam right on his tail with the potential jeopardy of slower GT4 cars ahead on the road.
Cook made the most of the situation to create an advantage however, slipping past the lead GT4 McLaren at Brittens in decisive style, to build an increased gap. Götz and Adam weren’t able to close that down in the final minutes, settling for second and third and enabling Cook to secure his and Collard’s first British GT win as a pairing.
Jewiss crossed the line fourth on the road, but once Dawson’s earlier penalty was applied they dropped to ninth. This promoted Richard and Sam Neary to fourth in their own Mercedes-AMG ahead of the second Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini of Alex Martin and Sandy Mitchell.
Nick Jones and Sven Muller finished sixth, with the latter setting the fastest ever British GT race lap of Oulton Park in the second half of the race with a 1m33.380s. Matt Griffin was seventh in the grid’s sole Ferrari after taking over from Duncan Cameron, just ahead of Marvin Kirchhöfer who recovered the first of the Optimum GT3 cars to eighth after Tillbrook’s earlier spin. The team’s other GT3 entry ended up 10th in the hands of Mike Price and Callum Macleod.
In the GT4 class Brown secured a win for himself and Warren after holding the lead throughout the second half of the race. Jack Mitchell and Steven Lake’s Lotus was second, after the former pressured Hopkinson’s co-driver Harry George in the latter stages. George was handed a drive through penalty for track limits infractions, however, promoting Mitchell to second whilst Chris Salkeld and Branden Templeton claimed third in class.
British GT Championship, Race 1, Oulton Park
- Collard/Cook, Barwell Motorsport, Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2
- Tse/Götz, 2 Seas Motorsport, Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, +0.953s
- Petrobelli/Adam, Blackthorn, Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, +2.519s
- Neary/Neary, Team Abba Racing, Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, +5.014s
- Martin/Mitchell, Barwell Motorsport, Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2, +6.154s
- Jones/Muller, Team Parker Racing, Porsche 911 GT3 R, +6.435s
- Cameron/Griffin, Spirit of Race SA, Ferrari 293 GT3, +11.513s
- Tillbrook/Kirchhöfer, Optimum Motorsport, McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, +12.211s
- Dawson/Jewiss, 2 Seas Motorsport, Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, +13.039s
- Price/Macleod, Optimum Motorsport, McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, +14.645s
Click here for full times and results from this event.