Photo: BritishGT.com
Two-time British GT Champion in the GT3 class, Jonny Adam was speaking at the Media Day for the launch of the 2017 season for the premier national GT championship.
Adam, partnered for the second year with Derek Johnston in the #1 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage GT3, is not going into the new season thinking it will be an easy ride.
“It’s going to be difficult,” said Adam. “Last year we had a great season with TF Sport and a new teammate last year with Derek. It was a great season with great success but this year it will be really difficult. I think everyone’s upped their game over the winter. There’s a new tyre with Pirelli. We’ve done a lot of testing with this tyre and it seems to suit the Aston quite well. What we want is consistency. We won the championship last year, yes, but we didn’t have the consistency in the middle part of the year so our focus is to have that throughout.
TF Sport has done a lot of testing work with the new compound of Pirelli tyre and Adam is happy with the balance he and Johnston have found on the new rubber.
“For the front-engined GT cars it’s quite a nice tyre. It gives us a little bit more stability under braking. We’ve done a lot of work to try and unlock the potential of the tyre as it’s quite a different tyre to drive on as well. It seems very consistent over race-runs over the winter. So far so good and it looks quick.”
The Aston Martin-works driver does not under-estimate the opposition he and Derek Johnston will face in the premier class this year. Will this year be tough, he was asked?
“Yes, as Benjamin (Franassovici, British GT Championship Manager) mentioned, GT3 is back again. It’s huge this year and to see four good crews with four different cars fighting for a championship will be really interesting. We feel we have a good package underneath us and obviously the Aston is a car I know well having driven it for six years. Derek is in his third year in the car. We know what’s capable underneath us.”
The British GT Championship grid next assembles at Oulton Park for the opening rounds of the 2017 season on April 15 – 17.
