Jonny Adam and James Cottingham became the first pairing to claim two wins in British GT this season, their success allowing them to regain the lead in the championship as just 12 points cover the top four crews.
The 2 Seas Motorsport entry never dropped out of contention during the two-hour contest at Donington Park, sailing through to another victory as other leading protagonists made mistakes either out on track or in the pits.
Initially Cottingham lost ground on the opening lap as an attempted move around the outside of polesitter Shaun Balfe into Redgate allowed Andrew Howard’s Beechdean Aston Martin Vantage to get a better exit, with Lucky Khera’s Race Lab McLaren 720S Evo almost demoting Cottingham’s Mercedes-AMG further.
Navigating GT4 traffic soon became an issue for the leaders, with Howard taking the opportunity to move into the lead at Balfe’s expense into the Fogarty Esses after just nine laps. The two-time British GT champion soon began to pull clear as Cottingham took a further 14 laps to force his way into second, while Balfe began a downward spiral through the pack.
A gap of more than four seconds between the leading pair soon began to reduce approaching the end of the first hour, and eventually they found themselves nose-to-tail with Morgan Tillbrook’s Enduro Motorsport McLaren in tow after a remarkable rise from ninth. Any space remaining between the leaders soon evaporated as a safety car was deployed just before the hour mark after Mike Price’s Mercedes crashed and rolled onto the barriers exiting McLeans.
The subsequent recovery of Price – who was taken to the medical centre for precautionary checks – the retrieval of his Greystone GT machine and repair to the barrier all led to a caution period lasting in excess of 30 minutes.
With the pack together as the GT3 pit window opened, it came down to a race between the pitcrews, all three leading cars without any compensation penalties from the previous Silverstone round. But, while Adam rejoined at the head of the pack, there was a 7s delay for the Beechdean machine, Howard admitting that he’d made a mistake reattaching the safety net after team-mate Ross Gunn had jumped in the car.
The error dropped them to fourth, but worse was to befall the Enduro McLaren as Marcus Clutton, in for Tillbrook, found he had no throttle when leaving the pits and was forced to perform a master reset, relegating him to eighth.
Source: Autosport