I was really excited to arrive at Brands Hatch after a very good race weekend in 2017, where I set the lap record in qualifying and took a race win, I was hoping for similar success in 2018.
Both Saturday practice sessions went very well and the team found a good set up that I was happy with. Going Into qualifying I was really confident, I didn’t have the best qualifying session as there was an interruption at the start which didn't help. I was pleased with my performance and the result was a front row starting position with 2nd on the grid, only 0.02 seconds from pole position. Race day was upon us and I was selected to start the race, I made a good start and immediately took the lead of the race around the outside of turn one, going into turn two I caught up with the GT3 cars and passed two cars. I was then hit by a Bentley GT3, this forced me wide, I recovered well and allowed the Bentley to pass me into turn three.
At the end of lap one I was still leading the race and had a small lead over 2nd position, I set out to extend the lead and over the next 15 minutes I extended it to 6 seconds, unfortunately another driver ended up in the gravel trap and meant the safety car was called out, this meant the following cars all caught back up as the pack slowed down to que behind the safety car. I made a good restart and made a gap in just 2 laps from the 2nd place driver in the other BMW M4. A few laps later the safety car was again back on track. After a while behind the safety car the race got going again and I made an ok restart. I pulled a small gap over the first few laps but had to pit to change drivers. When we returned out on track we were in 6th position.
British GT rules state that all silver / silver driver pairings (two more drivers compared to a Pro and an Amateur driver) have to serve a 30 second penalty during pit stops, this rule is put in place to allow amateur drivers in other teams to reduce the advantage gained by silver / silver teams. Despite this advantage being removed by the safety car we still needed to serve the penalty which means as my team mate started his stint he would need to try and get through as many cars as possible to make up the lost ground in the pit stop. A great stint from my teammate resulted in a fantastic 2nd place result and strong championship points.
We are currently 2nd in the British GT4 Overall standings and are only 10 points behind the leaders. It is a very competitive championship so the 3 cars behind us are also very close on points. It will be a very tense final race to decide the overall standings!
Next stop, Donington!
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