New era dawns for Seb Morris as British GT curtain raiser nears

Seb Morris will embark on the start of an exciting new chapter of his successful motorsport career this coming weekend, 16th/17th April, when he prepares to line-up on the grid at Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit for the opening round of the 2016 British GT Championship.

Making the switch from single-seater racing to closed-wheel, endurance-based GT racing this year, the 20-year-old from Marford will compete as the ‘Pro’ driver at the wheel of Team Parker Racing’s glorious No.31 Bentley Continental GT3 in the headline class of British GT.

Teaming-up with ‘amateur’ driver Rick Parfitt Jnr, the 2013 British GT4 Champion, two-time McLaren Autosport BRDC Award finalist Seb is relishing the change of disciplines from single-seaters where he has been a champion in Formula Renault, Vice-Champion in BRDC Formula 4 and a points-scorer in FIA Formula One World Championship support category GP3.

“At the end of the day, we’re racing a Bentley so we know the car is going to be fast!”, said the MSA Team UK driver, “We’ll go to Brands, work on the pit-stop procedure and do all of the small print stuff which is going to be new to me. Obviously it’s Parker’s first year with the Bentley and my debut season in GT but the cream will rise to the top and I’m confident we’ll get there this season.”

During the sole officially timed test of the pre-season at Snetterton 300 Circuit in Norfolk last month during the championship’s annual ‘Media Day’, Seb and team-mate Parfitt ended the outing seventh fastest on combined times.

Importantly, Team Parker Racing’s preparations for the new British GT season have gone fully to plan and Seb has been training as hard as possible for his first ever endurance contest. Next Sunday’s race on the Brands Hatch Grand Prix track will be the longest of his career to date, with roughly an hour behind the wheel during the 120-minute contest.

Although having raced in Europe for the last couple of years, Seb is more than familiar with the Kent venue from his time in UK single-seater racing and also the Ginetta Junior Championship where he began his career with two championship titles.

“Testing has gone very smoothly”, added Seb, “I’ve been happy with my performance and think I’m in the ballpark of the Pro racers, and Rick has got his lap times down to a good ‘amateur’ pace. We have been running the full weight on the car so we’ve been able to compare with last year’s British GT and Blancpain [Endurance Cup] times to get an idea of where we might be.

“Everyone at Team Parker has been doing a brilliant job, plus we’ve had Bentley engineers on hand too, so everything has gone as well as it could. This is going to be a much more enjoyable form of racing than the last year or so has been for me, when you’re behind someone you’re going to be able to actually race them. I’m really looking forward to having some proper battles again!”

Following two practice sessions on Saturday, 16th April, qualifying for the opening round of the British GT Championship season will get underway at 16.45 with the ‘Am’ session, followed immediately by the ‘Pro’ session. On Sunday, 17th April, there will be a brief 10-minute morning warm-up with the two-hour opening race of the 2016 campaign beginning at 13.30.


Related Motorsport Articles

84,520 articles