Adam Carroll and Liam Griffin won Round Three of the 2016 British GT Championship in the #6 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracán GT3.
Second was the #7 AMDTuning.com BMW Z4 GT3 driven by Lee Mowle and Joe Osbourne. Closing rapidly over the final laps of the one-hour race was the #31 Team Parker Racing Bentley Continental GT3 which was started by Rick Parfitt Jnr and handed over to Seb Morris for a blinding last twenty minutes which saw him close the gap to the #7 car to .23 of a second as they crossed the line.
In GT4 the PMW World Expo Racing / Optimum Motorsport pairing of Graham Johnson and Mike Robinson, driving the #50 Ginetta G55 GT4 took the class victory. Second was the #42 Generation AMR Aston Martin Vantage GT4 driven by Matthew Graham and Jack Mitchell. Taking the third podium slot was the #45 RCIB INSURANCE RACING Ginetta G55 GT4 driven by William Phillips and Jordan Stilp.
The #33 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracán driven by Jon Minshaw led the field from pole position for the opening laps. Seb Morris in the #31 Team Parker Racing Bentley Continental GT3 quickly moved overtook the #6 Barwell Motorsports Huracán before a safety car neutralised the raced following an incident involving the #40 Century Motorsport Ginetta G55 GT4 driven by Sean Byrne.
The race restarted after 11 minutes under the Safety Car with Minshaw still leading, followed by a hard-charging Parfitt in the #31 Bentley Continental GT3 and Liam Griffin in the #6 Lamborghini Huracan.
However the mandatory pit stop window saw some dramatic changes in fortune. The #31 Team Parker Racing Bentley Continental GT3 was delayed by the McLaren in the pit lane and, after all the driver changes had cycled through, the #6 Barwell Motorsports Lamborghini Huracán GT3 with Adam Carroll at the wheel led from Joe Osbourne in the #7 AMDTuning.com’s BMW Z3. The field was further rearranged with a number of stop/go and pit-lane penalties.
Seb Morris, having taken over from Parfitt at the wheel of the #31 Bentley, pushed hard and was trailing the #7 by over six seconds when he took third place. Morris pushed hard over the remaining laps and crossed the line less than a quarter of a second behind the #7.
Carroll was delighted with the victory.
“I had to make up for a small mistake at Rockingham which cost us a podium,” said Carroll after the race. “It was the first win for the Lamborghini Huracán in British GT so I’m happy to have that. Liam did a brilliant job. He’s a real good guy to race with and we make a strong team so a really good job by the team.”
Rick Parfitt was not so pleased with eventual finishing position of the #31 Team Parker Racing Bentley Continental GT3.
“Seb drove an absolute blinder but unfortunately the damage was done,” said Parfitt. “We played it exactly as we wanted to. We knew the Demon Tweeks car had a seven second penalty so I wasn’t going to make any moves because we knew we were going to jump into the pits but unfortunately the McLaren pushed out in front of us as we were trying to exit the pits and effectively cost us the race. To come back and still get a podium after effectively 15 to 20 seconds of just stuck in the pit lane was good.”
In GT4 the PMW World Expo Racing / Optimum Motorsport driver pairing of Graham Johnson and Mike Robinson controlled the class from the start. In the end Robinson brought the #50 Ginetta G55 GT4 home with an over 290 second advantage from the second place #42 Genertaion AMR Aston Martin Vantage driven by Jack Mitchell.
“Graham did all the hard work for me,” said Robinson from the podium. “It makes it easier when you get to take over the car in the lead. I was getting good feedback from the team about the GT3 cars so thankfully I could manage the traffic and stay out of everyone’s way and bring the car home first. All testament to the guys – they had to rebuild the car after the last race at Rockingham and to be honest it feels even better than it did before so, yes, really pleased.”
Round 4 of the 2016 British GT Championship, and the second one-hour race of the day, starts at 15:30.
