GT Cup - Brands Hatch Race Report - May 2024
Qualifying
Saturday qualifying went fantastically for me, the session started off on time on the full grand prix circuit, which is extremely fast, flowing but quite narrow so no room for any mistakes. The car felt great and I soon got into a rhythm getting quicker each lap, my delta kept coming down until I got down to a 1.26.9s lap and with 2 minutes to go the session got red flagged due to a very nasty crash (luckily the guy was ok, the car and armco not so) When I got back to the pits I could not believe that I had gotten overall pole position beating the quicker GT3’s and GTO cars. So a great start to the weekend.
Race 1 Sprint
Starting from pole I could control the rolling start and managed to go into the first corner in the lead but being chased hard by the Abba GT3 car and the Porsche GTO car, I just kept pushing every lap and my race engineer was tell me I was pulling a gap on the cars behind, so I just kept pushing hard expecting to see the bright green GT3 car in my mirrors at any minute but it just wasn’t there, I couldn’t believe it when I saw the last lap board come out and my engineer came over the radio telling me I over a 11second lead and to just bring the car home, I took the chequered flag winning the race outright and setting the fastest lap of the race, which has never been done by a GTC car before, the whole team was just so elated it felt unreal.
Pitstop Race Saturday
With me getting the fastest lap in the sprint race it meant my teammate Charlotte started the race from pole position, she got a good start but dropped to 5th in the first corner and then settled into the race and started to make progress overtaking our class competitor just before handing the car over to me, not only do we have the extra 20seconds in the pit for being classed as a pro we also had and additional 20 seconds success penalty meant when I left the pits I had a deficit of 40 seconds to make up on our closest rival in class. I got my head down and started to chip away at the times and slowly started pulling the time back until I could see him in front of me and that just gave me more determination to get past him. With 2 laps to go I managed to get alongside him on the pit straight and outbreaked him in to turn one allowing me to take the lead in our class and bring it back home taking the chequered flag P1 in class and P4 overall.
Pitstop Race Sunday
This time Charlotte started the race in P1 in class and P4 overall, at the start our main rival jumped the start and went past everybody into turn 1 which took everyone by surprise, Charlotte just got her head down and kept putting in great lap times passing him about 5 laps after the start but by which time the stewards had given him a 10second penalty to be added at the end of the race. Charlotte was getting quicker with each lap until a small mistake sent her spinning, luckily missing the armco by a matter of inches, after what seemed like a lifetime she got the car going again and managed to re-join the race but we had dropped down the grid massively and meant my job was going to be very difficult , damage limitation to our championship points position was going through my mind. I got in the car and pushed as hard as I could from the outset taking some risks in the early stages of my stint but I could see I was lapping between 4 and 5 seconds a lap quicker than our main competitor in class and to my surprise it wasn’t long before I was right behind him and pushing him trying to force a mistake so I could get past and it wasn’t long before that happened and I went around the outside of him coming out of Clearways and created a small comfortable gap until the chequered flag finishing and I couldn’t believe it when the team came over the radio saying that’s P1 in class.
We are next out at Snetterton on 1st and 2nd of June
