Sims and Attard Cement British GT Lead

04 June 2015 | 0 comments

With a third place on the podium of the Silverstone 500 last weekend, Marco Attard and Alexander Sims cemented their place at the top of the British GT championship table. Driving the Barwell Motorsport/Ecurie Ecosse BMW Z4 GT3, and starting from third on a drizzle-drenched grid, their pair battled throughout the race with McLaren, Aston Martin and another Z4 and now sit 11 1/2 points ahead of the Oman Racing pairing of Liam Griffin and Rory Butcher, whose #6 Oman Racing Vantage GT3 finished 6th.

Gary Eastwood was extremely unlucky in the sole Ferrari on the grid when his FF Corse car hit the just-spun #17 TF Sport Aston GT3 at Stowe corner.

Mark Farmer had a lucky escape when his 22GT Racing Vantage GT3 spun on the exit from Club corner, hit the concrete pit wall and bounced back across the circuit. A fire briefly flared but was soon extinguished and marshals and medics were quickly on the scene to assist the stricken car and driver as the safety car was again deployed.

Lee Mowle and Joe Osbourne brought their 888 Racing BMW Z4 home in 2nd with VonRyan Racing shrugging off the results a disastrous incident at Rockingham to take the win with Gilles Vannelet and Adrian Quaiff-Hobbs piloting one of two McLaren 650Ss. Vannelet had literally flown in from the LeMans test day just in time to be on the grid for the start of the race.

In the GT4 category, the lead changed a number of times over the three hour duration. At one time leading, the GPRM Toyota GT86 Turbo of Richard Williams and Stegan Hodgetts was forced to retire and it was the young drivers of the #407 Beechdean Aston Martin, Jamie Chadwick and Ross Gunn who eventually took the flag. The Oz Yusef/Gavan Kershaw pair took third (from a class pole start) with Terry Langley and Mike Hart 2nd in another Aston.

Next round is at Spa in Belgium but not until 10/11th July.

Words and photos: Chris Valentine.