GT4 class win for Ginetta G50Impressive GT3 debut for Ginetta G55
Ginetta is celebrating a successful start to the Avon Tyres British GT Championship season with impressive pace from the new G55 model in GT3 and a class win for the GT4-specification G50.
A fleet of four G55s entered the two 60-minute races. Ian Stinton shared his Stark Racing car with Mike Simpson, while Michelin Ginetta GT Supercup front-runner Adam Morgan shared with the rapid Stefan Hodgetts. GT Supercup racers Freddie Hetherington and Julian Draper shared a car, while Colin White teamed up with BTCC ace Andrew Jordan, fresh from a win at Donington just a week ago.
Draper qualified 13th for race one, with Morgan 18th and White 20th, while a new engine in Stinton’s car left him unable to complete many lap in the session. He started 24th on the grid.
Draper made good progress in the opening stint and climbed up to ninth place before handing over to Hetherington who brought home the car as the best-placed G55 in 13th place overall. Morgan and Hodgetts proved to be an evenly-matched pair and Hodgetts set the car’s fastest lap of the race just two laps from home. White dropped back in his stint, but he and fellow British GT rookie Andrew Jordan worked back into contention, and brought the Team LNT car home 17th, while Stinton/Simpson were delayed by a long pit stop and were 22nd.
Race two was started by the quicker drivers and there was drama at the first corner when contact in the pack spat the KTM X-Bow of Peter Belshaw/Marcus Clutton into the barriers. The field bunched up behind the safety car and Hetherington was the fleetest, working his way into the top 10, but there was more drama as ex-Formula Renault racer David McDonald went off in his G50 at Druids, as did Hodgetts in the G55. That triggered a second safety car spell in which a number of teams pitted early, but Mike Simpson stayed out until the end of the window in the Stark Racing G55 and assumed the lead on lap 16.
On the restart, Draper ran ninth but fell back behind the well-developed Ferrari 430 Scuderia of Adam Wilcox. With the retirement of Mtech’s Ferrari 458 and a penalty for the Tim Bridgman/Gregor Fisken, Draper/Hetherington took ninth to secure the best-ever finish for a Ginetta G55 in GT3. Simpson/Stinton took 16th, but Jordan’s car stopped on the warm-up lap with a smoky engine.
In GT4, Dan Denis/David McDonald took second in the opening race, but went off the road in race two, but there was celebration as the Century Motorsport-run G50 of Josh Wakefield/Jake Rattenbury took the class win, despite being overtaken under a yellow flag. The offending car received a time penalty and was demoted to second in class allowing the two teenagers to celebrate a win.
