Round 5&6 of the British GT Championship travelled east across the UK to Norwich and a sunny weekend at Snetterton. Forgetting it took me 5 hours and 260 miles from my home in Cardiff, South Wales, this is now my favourite UK circuit on the calendar.

From a spectator and photographer’s viewpoint, this circuit is heaven as you can be at either end of the track with just a 15-minute walk and the barriers allow you to get up close and personal with the action. The two prominent elevated spectating areas overlooking Palmer corner and Agostini corner enable you to see roughly 70% of the action from the first third of the track with the final third section of the circuit allowing you that super close and personal experience with short distances from the barrier and the track.

Mercedes dominate GT3

To say Mercedes was not a dominant machine at Snetterton is the understatement of the year I think, with both poles, both wins and the fastest lap of the weekend going the way of a Mercedes outfit team. 

Ian Loggie took pole in the AM qualifying for Race 1 and led away for the first 30 minutes of the race, dealing with any pressure from fellow Mercedes driver Flick Haigh of the 2 Seas motorsport team. He couldn’t pull the 5s gap needed to negate the success penalty RAM racing had to serve in the pitstop however and so leaving the pits it was roles reversed until a slow puncture halted 2 Seas charge for the win, meaning RAM picked up its second win of the season followed by W.P.I Motorsports Lamborghini and Team Abba Racings Mercedes who started 9th on the grid.

A special mention has to go to the Assetto Motorsport Bentley who sent it up the inside at the start, jumping from 5th to 3rd in spectacular fashion. Sadly a driver error later in the race undone all the hard work and they dropped to 13th at the flag.

Pro qualifying for Race 2 then and it was a top 4 lockout for Mercedes with a two-by-two for Ram Racing customer cars and 2 Seas Motorsport cars. The race however was action-packed and the order was shuffled quite considerably from the word go as 2 Seas, Barwell and Enduro motorsport found out three-wide into turn 1 doesn’t work, with Enduro falling to the back of the GT3 pack and 2 Seas dropping places early on also, although they do fight back to take the final podium spot at the flag.

The 2 seas customer car, DK Racing, were looking good for a strong result until a puncture halted progress but it allowed Barwell motorsport into second at the flag after only managing 6th in race 1 and 5th in qualifying for race 2, as Ram Racing took a second win of the weekend. 

Rubbing is racing in GT4

Not to be outdone by anything going on with the GT3 Racing, the GT4s produced some memorable moments and actions of their own. 

Race 1 proved to be a thriller. The race-leading Mustang was taken out by Team Parker Porsche giving them a post-race stop and go penalty. This meant that R Racing took the victory and the history books had been torn up because R Racing youngsters Miller and Day became the youngest ever winners, both being just 16 years old. Not even the legal age to drive here in the U.K. Incredible stuff. Steller Motorsport and Newbridge Motorsport propped up the final podium positions after some argy-bargy racing of their own which went down as a racing incident.

The BMW M4 GT4 of Century Motorsport put a fantastic move on his competitors over at Newbridge Motorsport to really pull away and have an uneventful win in race 2 which extended the teams overall championship lead. Newbridge dropped a further place after losing out to the Academy Motorsport Mustang, who should have really won race 1, late in the race but managed to keep hold of the third spot to pick up podium finishes in both races this weekend and jump up into second overall for the GT4 category due to Steller Motorsport not finishing. 

A special mention for Team BRIT also, who managed to secure their best result of the season so far with a 2nd in class and 6th place overall. If you didn’t know team BRIT is an outfit looking to support, inspire and motivate people facing physical and psychological challenges by demonstrating what can be achieved through motorsport. 

Next time out

In four weeks time its the big one as the British GT Championships head to Spa Francorchamps on the 23rd & 24th July, exactly one week before the official Spa 24hrs event. Last year for the 2 hour race they managed to complete 47 laps of the circuit with the Lamborghinis of Barewell Motorsport and W.P.I Motorsport taking the top 2 spots with Balfe Motorsport in the McLaren rounding out the podium.

If you remember the start from last year it was absolutely carnage as Richard Neary for Abba Racing mounted the side of Ian Loggie and RAM Racing sending him into a spin across the track into the path of the GT4s where he was collected head on. Cars were sent spinning, wheels were ripped off cars, front ends were completely smashed to pieces and in the end only 14 cars made the finish line.