British GT Championship – Snetterton Preview
The Return Of The Champions

After the cold and wet of Rockingham, the British GT Championship moves on to Snetterton in the hope that conditions will be kinder to teams and spectators alike (and the forecast is damp for Saturday and glorious for Sunday at the time of writing). There are several changes to the field, some more welcome than others; but we’ll start by welcoming back three former champions to the fold, for what looks to be one-off appearances.

As has been already announced, 2007 champions Alex Mortimer and Bradley Ellis bring the (so far in FIA GT3 in 2008) all-conquering Ford GT to Britain for its first BGT race and it will be fascinating to see how this car compares to the existing runners – on Avon tyres of course. A significant handicap facing this car, however, is the extra 30 seconds to be added to the mandatory stop on account of both drivers being A-rated.

The Ford will run under the RPM banner, but it’s fair to say that there will be a significant Matech Racing presence in the garages. RPM is quite used to competing with different marques – Porsches and Vipers in ’07 and Vipers and Ginettas in ’08 – and with the team’s Vipers running so strongly at Rockingham, there should be some intense intra-team competition in evidence this weekend.

Steve Clark and Paul O’Neill, having tasted victory in Corby, will be eager to repeat the feat and build up those crucial championship points; while Ollie Bryant and Nick Foster saw their partnership strengthen at the last meeting, with Foster unlucky not to finish higher after a storming run in the closing stages of the last race.

Leo Machitski will be looking to end a run of three rounds without scoring – two exclusions and a mechanical failure – and has brought in his old sparring partner to help. 2004 champion Jonny Cocker takes a break from his GT2 ALMS campaign with Paul Drayson to team up with his 2006 partner once more. Machitski won the inaugural BGT GT3 championship that year with Cocker’s help and was desperately unlucky not to record at least one win at Rockingham last month. With a bit more luck (and a closer eye on yellow-flags) the #9 Tech 9 Gallardo should be a very strong contender.

As will the other three Gallardos in the field; all of whom have arguably underperformed in the last four rounds, with just one podium between them; second at Rockingham for Piers Johnson and Adam Jones in the #21 Team Modena car.

The Ferrari battle will be intense after all the runners either lost ground or failed to progress significantly at Rockingham.

CR Scuderia certainly had an off couple of days last time out, with only James Sutton and Michael Meadows making the podium (twice, to double their points). But rather than mope about, all six drivers headed down to Thruxton just two days later to test and regroup; and they will undoubtedly be more of a presence at the front of the field during the coming races.

Paddy Shovlin and Michael Cullen lost their championship lead at Rockingham and Shovlin is replaced by Italian F3 driver Marco Mapelli for this meeting.

The ‘2007’ Ferrari teams of VRS and CiM both had disappointing meetings at Rockingham, although both showed what they were capable of at times over the weekend. Allan Simonsen wants to leave for Le Mans with more trophies in his suitcase; while Phil Burton and Adam Wilcox still seek that elusive first win in GT3.

Chad Racing was another to take advantage of the Thruxton test and Richard Marsh and Anthony Reid followed up a promising first meeting with some good lap-times down in Hampshire. Peter Bamford and Matt Griffin were on their way to the GT Open races at Spa after Rockingham (where they unfortunately didn’t race following a crash in qualifying), but both drivers had impressed greatly around the ‘roval’.

Jon Barnes and James Gornall now find themselves leading the championship on 29 points, despite not scoring in Round 6. The Team Trimite Viper was mighty in the first race and Snetterton should suit the Coupe very nicely.

Cadena Motorsport have been sadly missing from the championship since the opening rounds at Oulton Park, but they return with the bio-fuelled Aston Martin DBRS9; Barrie Whight and Gavan Kershaw taking the battle to the other GT3 runners on familiar territory. Meanwhile, Tom Alexander returns to the 22GTRacing Aston to partner Michael Bentwood on a circuit that should be a lot friendly to the car than was Rockingham.

This brings us to the less welcome changes for this meeting. Neither the Trackspeed Porsche nor the Preci Spark Ascari will be appearing – the former withdrawing in protest at what they see as unreasonable performance penalties; and the latter seemingly in protest at their exclusion at Knockhill – but we hope that this is only temporary.

Has there ever been a round of the British GT Championship that hasn’t featured a Porsche? 

In GT4 Beechdean Motorsport gamely take the fight to the Ginetta hordes having made their protest over equalisation at Rockingham. The Aston Martin N24 was at a clear disadvantage at the Northants circuit, but Snetterton should suit the big car more.

Round 5 saw a classic contest between the Richmond Racing/IMS Motorsport Ginetta of Matt Nicholl-Jones and Stewart Linn and the Rob Austin Racing G50 of Hunter Abbott and Rob Austin. The IMS car won that encounter, but positions were reversed in Round 6. Expect more of the same this weekend. But Fulvio Mussi and Nigel Redwood will scent the chance of victory as they team up in the #52 RPM Ginetta.

Hopefully, the meeting will also see the debut of the Promotorsport Nissan 350Z of Dereck Palmer Jr and Maxi Jazz, to add some more much needed variety to the GT4 field.