British GT Championship, Donington Park

A tense, dramatic and unpredictable final race of 2014 saw Marco Attard crowned British GT3 champion at Donington Park, despite retiring the Ecurie Ecosse BMW Z4 after only 4 laps.

The day had started in the worst possible way for Attard and team-mate Alexander Sims, as the BMW needed an engine change prior to the race. As the cars left the grid for the green flag lap, ominous looking oil smoke poured from the exhaust. The only other team capable of winning the title, the Oman Racing entry of Ahmad Al Harthy and Michael Caine, led the 31 car field into Redgate on lap one. Al Harthy set about building a healthy lead in the early laps, as the pack squabbled behind the fast starting Aston Martin. The Ecurie Ecosse BMW retired with gearbox failure at the end of lap 4, and Attard now faced a tense two hour wait to see if Al Harthy and Caine would take the race win, and with it the championship.

Al Harthy now set about consolidating his early lead, and built a substantial cushion over the rest of the field by the time he handed over the Michael Caine for the final hour of the race. Caine emerged from the round of pitstops in the lead, but Phil Keen was charging in the #63 Trackspeed Porsche. Caine tried everything to hold the Porsche at bay, but Keen eventually overhauled the Aston Martin with around 20 minutes of the race to go. Caine fell to fourth at the end of the race, leaving a very relieved Marco Attard as the 2014 champion.

Ollie Hancock and Gary Eastwood drove a strong race to finish a close second at the flag, with Matt Bell charging up the field to take third for United Autosports alongside Mark Patterson.

In GT4, Rick Parfitt Jnr and Tom Oliphant took an extremely hard fought victory over the HorsePower Racing Aston Martin of Andrew Jarman and Devon Modell, with Twisted Team Parker taking the final step of the podium in their Ginetta G55. The GT4 crown was won by the Beechdean AMR pair of Jake Giddings and Ross Wylie, a fifth place finish after a late race splash and dash pitstop being just enough to give them the title.

Full results can be found here.

Words and photography by Richard Crawford

Classifieds Archive

£410000

£54000

POA

SOLD

SOLD

$1000000

$3000

POA

$399500

$115000

$25000

$17000