BATTLE OF BRANDS HATCH AWAITS BRITISH GT COMPETITORS
British GT 2024 concludes this weekend at Brands Hatch where both the GT3 and GT4 titles will be decided across two hours of racing.
The battle for senior class honours is almost an all-Barwell affair. Rob and Ricky Collard enjoy a comfortable but not insurmountable lead over team-mates Alex Martin and Sandy Mitchell, while Garage 59’s Shaun Balfe and Adam Smalley are also mathematical contenders.
GT4, on the other hand, is much closer thanks to 13.5 points separating the four title contenders. Forsetti’s Mikey Porter and Jamie Day have a slender head start over their Silver class rivals Jack Brown and Zac Meakin (Optimum), but Pro-Am’s two leading protagonists – Charles Dawson and Seb Morris (Team Parker Racing), and Marc Warren and Will Orton (Forsetti) – also retain realistic hopes of winning overall.
Those seven cars contribute towards a 31-strong entry featuring several debutants. All will contest British GT’s first season finale to be held at Brands Hatch since 2009 when David and Godfrey Jones won the GT3 title in their Preci-Spark Ascari by a single point from Hector Lester.
Weather permitting, the Red Devils British Army Parachute Display Team will drop in just before the start of Sunday’s race. And there’s also a fan pitwalk and autograph session, albeit at the earlier-than-normal time of 09:05.
Can’t make it? No sweat! British GT’s battle of Brands is live on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel and Sky Sports F1 this weekend.
GT3: ADVANTAGE COLLARDS
Barwell’s Lamborghinis have largely bossed 2024, and the senior class battle between them now boils down to two key factors: points on the board versus Compensation Time.
Victory at Donington helped the Collards establish a 24.5-point lead over Martin and Mitchell. But there’s now a price to pay in the shape of 20 seconds extra in the pits on Sunday.
Their Barwell team-mates have no such handicap but must win or come second and hope the Collards finish no better than sixth or 10th. There’s often a twist in British GT’s tail but such a large deficit has never been overturned at the finale. The current record, 13, was set by Darren Leung and Dan Harper 12 months ago.
Either way, one of Rob and Sandy – who won the title together with Barwell in 2020 – would become only British GT3’s third multiple champion after Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam.
There is a third option, but Balfe and Smalley are 36 points behind the Collards with 37.5 available for winning. And they also have 10 seconds of Compensation Time to contend with. As such, Garage 59’s McLaren needs nothing short of a miracle if its drivers are to add the overall title to their Silver-Am crown.
Balfe has been here before, albeit all the way back in 2003 when as championship leader his title hopes ended in controversial fashion at Paddock Hill Bend. But he’s very much the outsider this time.
GT3’s only other undecided championship is Pro-Am after Barwell wrapped up the teams’ title last time out and Balfe/Smalley sealed Silver-Am at Snetterton. But a quirk of points scoring means the overall champions are not necessarily guaranteed to also win their class. The gap between Barwell’s entries stands at 24 points.
Ian Loggie and Phil Keen finished fifth at Donington but were knocked out of contention and have elected not to race this weekend. 2 Seas’ other entry, a Mercedes-AMG shared by Kevin Tse and Maximilian Götz, will be there, though. They’ve won twice this year, qualified second last time out, and should challenge again at a track where the same team and car took pole in 2023.
Driver changes prevent the likes of Beechdean AMR, Orange/JMH and Team RJN from scoring points this weekend. Tom Wood joins Andrew Howard, Benjamin Goethe partners Simon Orange, and Josh Caygill links up with Al Buncombe.
GT4: LITTLE TO SEPARATE TITLE CONTENDERS
13.5 points – fewer than the difference between finishing first and third – cover the remaining contenders at Brands.
As such, even the crew in fourth – that’s Forsetti’s Warren and Orton – could conceivably overturn their deficit. They were bang in contention before Donington where a first non-score of the season dropped them behind Dawson and Morris overall but not in the Pro-Am standings.
Team Parker’s duo lies 7.5 points off outright top spot but are the only championship chasers with Compensation Time. If he were to overturn it Morris could become only the second-ever GT3 and GT4 champion after Rick Parfitt Jnr, with whom he shared 2017’s crown.
Standing in his and Dawson’s way are two Silver crews that have led all season. 3.5 points separate Zac Meakin and 2023 runner-up Jack Brown from Mikey Porter and Jamie Day in the overall standings, while 15 points cover them in class. Forsetti’s Aston can afford to finish one place behind the Optimum McLaren if it’s fourth or lower, although that also depends on where Dawson, Morris, Warren and Orton end up.
The top two have been closely matched throughout 2024 but often compromised by Compensation Time. Neither will serve it on Sunday when, instead, it’s the Silver crews’ longer mandatory pitstops that could be crucial to the outcome of this year’s GT4 championship.
It’s still possible that points could be tied, but Porter/Day would win on countback against both Dawson/Morris and Warren/Orton, while Team Parker’s crew beat Forsetti’s #47 duo.
Mathematically, GT4’s Pro-Am championship has one more possible protagonist: Century’s Ian Gough and Tom Wrigley are 28 points adrift of Warren/Orton but will have +10 seconds in the pits for finishing third overall at Donington.
Three wins in the last four outings makes Century the form team over the second half of this year. But the drivers responsible for two of those victories, Ravi Ramyead and Charlie Robertson, are absent this weekend. Instead, Chris Salkeld steps back into the same BMW with which he won 2023’s Pro-Am title.
There are also changes at Toyota Gazoo Racing UK where GT3 race winner Michael O’Brien joins debutant Benjamin Tusting.
Written by Tom Hornsby
