Spa Francorchamps played host to the Avon Tyres British GT Championship this weekend and brought all change to the challenge standings once again. The weekend’s racing was made up of two qualifying sessions (one for each driver) and two 1 hour races.Race one saw reigning champion David Ashburn and his co-driver Richard Westbrook claim their second Avon Tyres British GT win of the season. Their Trackspeed Porsche beat the Duncan Cameron and Matt Griffin MTech Ferrari to the chequered flag by 2.5s and saw the pair take 100 points each towards the challenge. In GT4, Dan Dennis and David McDonald claimed their first class victory for the Scuderia Vittoria team.In GT3 third place and 55 points went to father and son, Jim and Glynn Geddie. Jim was first in the car and drove fantastically well in the early laps, taking the car from eighth on the grid to fifth, before the mandatory pit stops. Glynn then took over and moved into third crossing the line only 5s behind.
Andrew Tate and Alex Mortimer made good progress throughout the race and went from starting 12th on the grid to finishing fourth; claiming 40 points towards the Sunoco Daytona Challenge. Andrew Howard and Jonathan Adam with their Beechdeen Aston Martin finished fifth with 30 points towards the challenge, ahead of the United Autosports Audi R8 of Mike Guash and Matt Bell who took sixth and 25 points.Gregor Fisken and Tim Bridgman took the chequered flag in seventh and each gained 20 points towards the challenge. Phil Burton and Adam Wilcox claimed eighth in their Predator CCTV Ferrari and took 15 points ahead of Ron Johnson and Piers Johnson in their Speedworks Corvette who finished in ninth; taking the 10 points towards the challenge. Godfrey and David Jones completed the top 10 in their Preci-Spark Mercedes taking the final points on offer towards the challenge.
In GT4 the win and maximum points went to Dan Dennis and David McDonald ahead of Josh Wakefield and Jake Rattenbury in second. Leyton Clarke and Freddy Nordstrom with their Lotus Sport UK Lotus took the final podium spot.The second British GT race of the weekend saw Duncan Cameron and Matt Griffin take their first victory of the season with their MTech Ferrari 458 Italia and 100 points each towards the challenge, propelling Matt Griffin into third place in the overall challenge standings. The Gregor Fiskin/Tim Bridgman Trackspeed Porsche went on to take second and 75 points towards the challenge, just 0.9s behind the winners. The Beechdean Aston Martin drivers Andrew Howard took the last podium spot and 55 points towards the challenge.
The winners from the first race, Richard Westbrook and David Ashburn, failed to score any points after Ashburn didn’t get a turn at the wheel when the Porsche collected some tyre damage in the first few laps and was forced to retire to the pits.The new invitation class McLaren claimed overall fourth place but due to not being in the GT3 class did not steal any points the others needed towards the challenge. This meant fourth place points went to the United Autosports due of Matthew Bell and Michael Guasch. Jim Geddie and Glynn Geddie took fifth place and 30 points towards the challenge ahead of Ron and Piers Johnson who took sixth place points. Seventh place points went to Hector Lester and Allan Simonsen, eighth place went to Michael Lyons and Charles Bateman, ninth to Jay Palmer and John Bintcliffe and the final tenth place points to John Dhillon and Aaron Scott.In GT4 first place went to the Lotus Sport UK Lotus of Ollie Jackson and Peter Glew. Marcus Clutton who was sitting second in the overall challenge standings finished second with team mate Peter Belshaw ahead of the Barwell/Secure Aston Martin in third.The next point scoring round will be for the Cooper Tires British F3 at Paul Ricard this weekend. For more information see sunocodaytonachallenge.com
