AS BRITISH GT PREPARES TO RESUME AT ROCKINGHAM
Jake Giddings and British GT Championship team-mate Kieran Griffin return to the scene of last season’s GT4 Class podium finish, Rockingham in Northamptonshire, this coming weekend where the JWB Motorsport drivers are aiming to kick-start their 2016 campaign.
Wisbech racer Jake, who is contesting his third season in the GT4 Class of British GT this year and second as team-mate to Hertfordshire businessman Griffin, says qualifying is going to be the key factor for the JWB entry if a challenge for silverware is to be mounted on Sunday.
Going into the second two-hour race of the season, the team-mates are fourth in the Pro-Am classification of GT4 and ninth in the outright GT4 standings following a ninth place finish at Brands Hatch a week ago in a less-than-straightforward championship curtain-raiser.
Sharing driving duties in the No.47 Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT4, the duo’s preparation for the first race of the year was significantly impacted by a problem with a split oil pipe in opening practice – an issue which had a knock-on effect into qualifying with severely reduced track time.
Additionally, the race itself was badly interrupted by a lengthy ‘Full Course Yellow’ period, following a major collision, and ultimately ended around 20 minutes early with a red flag stoppage following another incident.
With limited racing mileage available after the driver-change pit stop, which fell during the cautionary yellow flag period, Jake moved up from 11th place in GT4 into ninth before the race stoppage but he is confident this coming Sunday’s race will be a more fruitful one.
“Qualifying stronger at Rockingham is the key for us”, said 21-year-old Jake, the 2014 class champion, “We had a great race there last year to finish on the podium, Kieran and I both did a good job, so we’d obviously like to repeat that this time and we’ll be trying our hardest.
“At Brands we were on the pace in the end, on the back of the top six, but we need to make sure we start the weekend at Rockingham in that sort of position. The biggest thing will be to have a trouble-free run in both of the practice sessions, if Kieran can have plenty of clear track time I’m sure we’ll go into qualifying in a much stronger position than we did at Brands.”
The No.47 Irish TV, Finesse Paving and Civil Engineering, Cowley Road Garage and Toppesfield-backed Aston Martin will be on track at Rockingham for the opening British GT free practice session at 09.45 on Saturday, 30th April, with second practice following at 11.55. Qualifying will then provisionally get underway at 15.35.
On Sunday, 1st May, warm-up will begin at 09.25 with the second round of the championship set to commence at 13.00.
2016 British GT Championship GT4 Driver Standings (after Rd1):9th Jake Giddings & Kieran Griffin, 3pts
2016 British GT Championship GT4 Pro-Am Driver Standings (after Rd1):4th Jake Giddings & Kieran Griffin, 18pts
2016 British GT Championship GT4 Team Standings (after Rd1):9th JWB Motorsport, 3pts
