Snetterton played host to rounds three and four of the British GT Championship with a pair of one-hour races. Joining them on a packed race-card were the BRDC British Formula Three Championship, Briton’s premier single-seater Championship with three races. Support also action also came from the Mini Challenge JCW, VW Cup, Ginetta’s and Sports 2000 Championships.

British GT qualifying on Saturday saw Tom Gamble take pole for race one on his GT3 debut driving Century Motorsport BMW M6, BMW’S first British GT pole since 2015. Gamble had been called up as a late substitute for Adrian Willmott and as a result his BMW was also carrying 60Kg ballast making his pole position all the more impressive. In GT4 it was Multimatic who continued their run of poles with Scott Maxwell fastest in the teams Ford Mustang. Qualifying times proved how close things were in GT4 as the top thirteen were all within a second of each other. From the start it was Gamble who was able to hold his lead but mid-way into the first lap a challenge from the Lamborghini of Sam De Haan nudged Gamble from the lead. This allowed Glynn Geddie to take the lead in the Bentley as Gamble slotted into second with Ollie Wilkinson in the Optimum Aston Martin third and De Haan now down to fourth. As the race developed so did close battles for position as Geddie built a lead. It was De Haan again in the action but this time it was his turn to be spun following contact with Dominic Paul in the second Century BMW. Having built a seven second lead Geddie pitted the Team Parker Bentley to hand over to Ryan Ratcliffe who should have re-joined in the lead but a slow stop dropped them down the order. The lead was now with Jack Mitchell who had taken over the BMW from Gamble and he was soon under pressure from Phil Keen in the Barwell Lamborghini having taken over from Adam Balon. In a heavier BMW Mitchell began to defend his lead from Keen, unfortunately an electrical issue caused the BMW to slow and Keen was in a lead he would not loose taking an easy win by 13.5 seconds. Behind it was Ratcliffe in the Bentley who held off a number of challengers to take second while reigning Champion Jonny Adam in the Aston Martin just beat Jonny Cocker in the Lamborghini in a race to the line for third. In GT4 it was an easy debut win for the Steller Motorsport Audi driven by Richard Williams and Sennan Fielding. Williams started in the Audi, taking the lead from Maxwell’s Mustang at the start and any chance the Mustang had to challenge was lost by a longer pit-stop due to previous success and penalty for being a Silver Cup runner. This left Tolman Motorsport to fill the remaining podium spots with their pair of McLaren’s with Josh Smith and James Dorlin second while Lewis Proctor and Jordan Collard took third.

For race two it was TF Sport’s Nicki Thiim in their Aston Martin who would start on pole having been fastest in Saturday’s second session in GT3 while in GT4 it was Scott Malvern in the Team Parker Mercedes who would start from pole. At the start it was Thiim who took the lead with Keen’s Lamborghini in second place, and that was to be the story of the opening part of the race. The pair pulled away from the field, never separated by more than a second as they disputed the lead. When the pit window opened the pair pitted together as Thiim handed the Aston Martin over to Mark Farmer and Balon took over the Lamborghini. Following their race one win Balon had an extra ten-second penalty to serve during the pit-stop as Farmer re-joined in the lead. Balon re-joined in second with team-mate De-Haan right behind in third and the Lamborghini duo then set about working together to catch Farmer in the lead. Light drizzle favoured the Lamborghini’s as both caught and passed Farmer, the pair then going on to dispute the lead. Never more than a car length apart at the flag it was Balon who took the win and record back-to-back wins for himself, Keen and Barwell Motorsport. The first time that this had been achieved in British GT since Oulton Park in 2017 when it was again Barwell who achieved the feet. Behind them in third it was the new McLaren 720 of Shaun Balfe and Rob Bell who prevailed. There was further success for Adam Balon as he was named Blancpain’s driver of the weekend. In GT4 it looked like the Team Parker Mercedes of Scott Malvern and Nick Jones were set to take a dominant win. Having taken the lead from pole Malvern handed the Mercedes over to Jones who had retained their lead, two laps from the finish it was not to be as a puncture saw their win disappear. The team to take advantage of this were Tolman as their McLaren driven by Lewis Proctor and Jordan Collard who took their maiden British GT win. In second was the TF Sport Aston Martin of Ash Hand and Tom Canning with the HHC McLaren of Callum Pointon and Dean MacDonald in third.

Sunday’s support races did not disappoint and it was nice to see something different with the Sports 2000 taking a slot on the card. With one race on Saturday there were two further outings for the BRDC British Formula Three on Sunday. It was Jonathan Hoggard who took the win for Fortec in race one meaning that he would start at the back for Sunday’s reverse grid second race. Swedish driver Lucas Peterson started from pole for Carlin and was able to convert this into a win as Hoggard battled from the back to eighth overall. Race three saw Hoggard on pole and make a decent start but Hampus Ericsson had made a better one taking the lead. As they approached Wilson hairpin for the first time American driver Neil Verhagen challenged Hoggard for second and the pair made contact, Verhagen was forced onto the grass and as he re-joined collected Hoggard and Kieran Jewiss taking all three out of the race. The safety car was bought out for a number of laps as the incident was cleared and when the race re-started Ericsson took the lead. Coming under pressure from Clement Novalak in the closing stages Ericsson held on to win for Double R Racing by just over half a second, completing the top three was Novalak’s Carlin team-mate Kaylen Frederick. The Ginetta G40 Cup also had one race on Saturday and two Sunday for the identical Ginetta sports cars. Race one had seen Daniel Morris take a narrow win from Rob Keogh and race two would see Morris starting from pole. This time it was Keogh who took the honours with Morris second on the road but a ten second penalty for an out of position start would drop him to fourth. The final race saw Keogh start from pole and a close three-way battle for the lead eventually saw the win go to Alistair Barclay just 0.1 second ahead of Keogh with Morris third half a second back.

The Mini Challenge JCW had two races and the first saw an easy win for James Gornall from pole position with Nathan Harrison eight seconds back in second and Dan Zelos just getting the better of Ben Palmer for second. The second race saw the top ten places on the grid reversed, so it was Calum Newsham starting from pole with Gornall tenth. Pole man Newsham was a retirement on lap one and it was Jack Davidson who took the win three seconds clear of Nathan Harrison in second while Gornall had made his way up to third in the seven lap race. The guest Sports 2000 Championship had one thirty-minute race for the open-top sports cars and they did not disappoint in tricky conditions. Having taken pole by almost two seconds Charles Hall was expected to run away with the race in his Gunn TS11. This did not prove to be the case however, Hall did take the overall win but was challenged all the way by Michael Gibbins in his MCR S2 who was second, just a second back. Third place went to current Champion Tom Stoten driving another Gunn TS11. The first of the days VW Cup races was red-flagged after just two laps with Josh Coggan leading in his Golf. An incident which saw the Scirocco’s of former BTCC driver Bret Smith and Dan Crossley end up in the pit entrance had stopped the race and the time taken to clear the incident meant there was no re-start. Later in the day the VW’s had another change with their second scheduled race. It was another former BTCC driver, Martin Depper, who took the win having started eighth on the grid in his Scirocco.  Almost four seconds back was Lewis Smith in another Scirocco while race one leader Coggan was third in his Golf.

British GT album – https://www.facebook.com/pg/Snap-magcom-2061747147426100/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2401666516767493

BRDC British F3 & Sports 2000 album – https://www.facebook.com/pg/Snap-magcom-2061747147426100/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2402129243387887

Mini Challenge JCW & VW Racing Cup – https://www.facebook.com/pg/Snap-magcom-2061747147426100/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2402144076719737

Gary Malkin