Basey-Fisher Claims Protyre Motorsport Ginetta GT5 Challenge Title

Ginetta Junior Scholarship winner 2012 Oliver Basey-Fisher was today crowned the Protyre Motorsport Ginetta GT5 Challenge champion, thanks to four overall race wins and 14 podium finishes by the 18 year old racer from Stowemarket.

Arriving at the former Formula One circuit three points behind closest rival Brad Bailey and just one point ahead of his teammate Will Burns, an opening lap incident for Bailey saw him retire and theoretically, put him out of contention for the title.

The opening race was won by former Ginetta Junior racer George Gamble, who put on a fantastic show to finish 2 seconds up the road from Basey-Fisher – an impressive way to make his debut in the British GT support series.

Second place in race one was enough to see Basey-Fisher enter race two with a championship lead of four points over Will Burns, with the pair starting from eighth and fifth respectively – however the 12.15pm race was cut short after an incident with the G20 of Tudor Alexander left debris strewn across the track and resulted in a long delay.

Given the live television coverage on Motors TV, the stewards made the decision to postpone the race restart until after the British GT finale, resulting in the cancellation of round 21, which was due to run as the final outing of the day.

Starting the decider as per their grid positions for race two, Luke Davenport made a storming start from second place on the grid, pushing Bailey wide at Redgate which then evolved into Bailey spinning and facing oncoming traffic at the Craner Curves.

At Coppice, a spin for Will Moore – who was also in the wars in race one – saw him collect the G20 of Nick Zapolski, resulting in a safety car to remove the stricken racers.

As the race restarted, Giddings took the lead from Davenport at Redgate, but it was chaos at Craner Curves as multiple cars skittled off the circuit on what looked like dropped oil, causing a safety car, swiftly followed by a red flag.

On the restart, the race was limited to 10 minutes, and the start based on the driver positions on the lap prior to the red flag; and what an action packed 10 minutes it was. With Burns having to outscore Basey-Fisher by four points, he was left with a test of passing both Basey-Fisher and one other in order to win the title.

With lunges at every opportunity, and a very wide TCR car of Jake Giddings throughout much of the closing stages, it looked to be anyone’s game. Arriving at the Melbourne Hairpin three abreast for the penultimate time, it was very much heart-in-your-mouth moments from the crowd around the Leicestershire circuit.

As Giddings settled in between Basey-Fisher and Burns, the latter driver needed to find a way past both cars in order to scoop enough points to win the championship, and whilst a last minute move on the run to the line might have paid off should he have held it, Burns was forced to settle for the runners up spot.

The race itself was once again won by George Gamble, who showed fine form on his debut in the series. Luke Davenport finished in second place having made a great name for himself as a contender throughout the season, whilst Basey-Fisher brought his car home in third ahead of Giddings in fourth and with Burns rounding out the top five. The results were also enough to see Academy Motorsport crowned the Protyre Motorsport Ginetta GT5 Challenge Team Champions 2013.

There’s no denying, Basey-Fisher welcomed the chequered flag as the end was called to a rather dramatic day of racing at Donington Park, but the former Ginetta Junior Scholarship winner was happy to share his thoughts.

Basey-Fisher said; “I cannot actually believe it, from winning the scholarship at the end of 2011, to making my racing debut at Brands Hatch in March of last year and now being crowned a British champion is just phenomenal.

“I couldn’t have gotten here without the support of my family, Academy Motorsport and the guys at Ginetta who gave me my first break in sports car racing. I think it will take a while to sink in, but wow, what a race and what a way to end my season. This result will give me the boost I need to move onwards and upwards for 2014.”

The Ginetta Junior Scholarship 2014 is still accepting entries for the annual event which offers one teenager a fully funded season in the Ginetta Junior Championship. For information or to enter, please visit http://www.ginetta.com/junior_scholarship and who knows, you could be in Oliver’s position in years to come…

For a flavour of the series take a look at this video…

Many thanks to Ginetta & Jakob Ebrey Photography.

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