British GT – Factory drivers take over in 2018

After the Blancpain series, 2 GT series really run the roost in the mass of domestic GT series around the world, British GT still topping my list.

Both the ADAC GT Masters and British GT championships are huge within their native countries and further a field and both of them probably grow every year with their further investment from factories by sending their pro drivers to race in these series and bring some real competition to national championships.

This year British GT is one of the most competitive series I’ve seen in a very very long time, with factory drivers from Mclaren, Mercedes, Nissan and most notably Aston Martin. All these drivers flocking in has only pushed the ‘Gentleman’ drivers to higher levels and really pushed them to their limits.

Last years title winners, Team Parker racing Bentley in the hands of Rick Parfitt Jnr and this season with Ryan Ratcliffe seem to be struggling with this huge jump in the level of driving in the season so far but returning to silverstone, a circuit the Bentley certainly Is strong at could see a much stronger performance from the squad.

Mercedes sent Yelmer Buurman this year to partner Lee Mowle in the ERC sport AMG and so far the combination have laid down the law and taken the season lead heading into the British GT’s blue riband event. Yelmur already raced here only 3 weekends ago with the Black falcon outfit achieving a 6th position overall.
A one off entry and return for Team Abba racing with Factory driver Adam Christodoulou and Richard Neary. Christodoulou battled until the very end in the Nurburgring 24 hours this year to finish 2nd and recently returned to the Blancpain GT series at silverstone and finished 2nd overall, can he take a win this time round in the British GT?

WEC shifted its season to a winter season this year, this has given a lot of drivers a lot more free time. Aston Martin have been keen to capitalise on this and keep their drivers busy and on top of their game so have sent no less than 5 factory drivers to compete in this years championship.
The 2017 GTE Pro winner Jonny Adam partners Flick Haigh at Optimum motorsport and instantly took the headlines at Oulton Park by Flick making history and being the first woman to claim a win in the premier class in the British GT.
Darren turner returns with also a returning Beechdean Aston Martin partnered by hugely experienced and former champion Andrew Howard.

Jetstream Motorsport and Graham Davidson jumped from GT cup in 2017 to British GT in 2018 and have already taken a podium with their factory driver Maxime Martin who must not have visited a lot of these circuits before.

Finally the ‘Dane Train’ have come to British GT in 2018 with Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim. TF sport have support from this rather popular duo from Aston Martin. Sorensen partners previous champion Derek Johnson and Thiim teams up with Mark Farmer. Last time out in Snetterton both cars notched up wins in the races with Nicki Thiim also coming from the win here in the Blancpain series with R-Motorsport can he strike again for the TF sport squad?

The Silverstone 500 is looking to be dominated by factory drivers, all of them have huge experience here and some have even experienced recent success here, this race is going to be one not to be missed. The 3 hour affair starts on sunday the 10th of June at 13:10.