Alex Martin and Sandy Mitchell emerged victorious from a turbulent British GT Championship race at Donington Park last weekend, bagging their second win of the season to restore themselves in the championship lead.
Martin and Mitchell successfully navigated their #78 Dextra Commercial Lighting-backed Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo II across a host of challenges, including sudden downpours, multiple safety car periods and final a nail-biting dash to the flag to secure their second maximum points haul of the season.
Rob and Ricky Collard also enjoyed a standout weekend in the #63 Black Bull Scotch Whisky/Collard Group-supported car, running at the head of the pack for much of the race only for the bad timing of a late safety car and rising tyre temperatures to limit them to fifth. Regardless, their record of scoring in every race so far means Barwell’s crews run one-two in the British GT Championship, with Martin/Mitchell marginally ahead. Barwell Motorsport also extended its lead in the Teams’ standings.
The twin Barwell Lamborghinis ran strongly from the very start of the weekend, with both cars featuring at the sharp end of the timesheets across the Saturday practice sessions as the team made the crucial preparations ahead of qualifying, and it was there that both cars would truly put on a show.
With each driver’s best time being combined to form the grid, both sides of the garage thrived under pressure with Rob Collard topping Q1 outright, just 0.195s ahead of Martin as the two Lamborghinis set a blistering pace. That continued into Q2 with Sandy Mitchell just doing enough to pip Ricky Collard to pole, and in doing so cemented an all-Barwell front row for Sunday’s race.
While Saturday’s running took place in bright sunshine, Sunday was the polar opposite, with intermittent rain showers making the three-hour race a true battle. There was further drama when the Barwell crew spotted a potential gearbox issue on the #63 after morning Warm Up. The team proceeded to replace the entire unit inside an hour before the race start, marking the latest impressive engineering achievement from the Barwell technical crew.
When the cars headed to the grid, the field originally lined up on slick Pirellis, but when the heavens opened on the formation lap, the start was aborted to allow the cars to switch to wets.
When the lights finally did go out, Martin and Rob Collard led the pack through the tricky opening laps as the soaked track gradually began to dry. After a handful of laps Martin began to struggle with spiking tyres pressures that made his car a handful, which was all the invitation Rob needed to dive past into the Esses to assume the lead. Martin was then shoved back to fourth after losing momentum, but recovered in time to hold position as both cars completed their first stops to both switch drivers and move to slick tyres.
Ricky rejoined out front in the #63, with Mitchell climbing to third after a smooth service from the Barwell crew. The two cars were inseparable through the race’s next phase, with Mitchell briefly finding a way past Ricky as the rain returned with all cars on dry tyres, the two Huracans running on a knife edge before finally returning to the pits to switch back to wets. The timing was perfect too, as shortly after a host of cars hit standing water at turn one, skating into the gravel and causing the race to be red flagged.
The chaos both led to a 45-minute delay, and jumbled the order for the restart, so when racing eventually did resume Rob Collard led the way, with Martin in fifth. Collard set about grafting a lead, only for a series of caution periods and safety cars to repeatedly destroy his advantage. It would be the penultimate caution that did the real damage, with the 2 Seas Mercedes of Ian Loggie and Phil Keen scraping past the #63 when the cars made their final stops and rejoined fractions of a second apart, with Ricky needing to chase down Keen to regain the lead. However, Ricky was hamstrung by rising tyre temperatures, and soon had to turn his attentions to fending off Mitchell, who had brought the #78 back into third.
Mitchell eventually found a gap when Ricky slid wide at Redgate, and then set about chasing down Keen. When the Mercedes was baulked in traffic heading up Starkey’s Mitchell pounced, getting his nose in front at McLeans before completing a superb pass at Coppice. Once in front, Mitchell managed the race superbly to take the flag, and seal the best possible response after his and Martin’s disappointing retirement at Silverstone.
Ricky battled hard despite lacking grip on his wilting tyres, but was ultimately limited to fifth place. However, the result still means the collards run just 9.5pts behind Martin/Mitchell.
“That was one of the most stressful races – it was stressful to drive in, and just as stressful watching Sandy in those closing stages! The start of the race was really tough. We went with high tyre pressures to try and get away at the start but that ended up making things tougher when it dried out and the wets started to boil. Still, this is the best possible result after Silverstone and a mega effort from the team.”
“This was such a tough race to call, for both the drivers and the team. Alex did brilliantly in his first stint to hang on to the lead pack, and then when the rain returned it was all about focus and consistency. We managed to keep things clean and after getting into second I knew I had the pace to attack the leading Mercedes. When he got delayed in traffic I had to take my chance so went for it. This feels like a big win for us.”
“Fifth is a decent result with more points on the board, but it feels like once again a safety car has cost us a possible win, just like at Silverstone. In the middle section of the race I was leading but every time I tried to get away the caution periods pegged us back and denied us. The last one was really damaging, and then Ricky was really struggling with his tyres at the end. It’s a shame, but we’re still there in the championship and we showed great pace all weekend, so there’s still a lot of positives.”
“It’s a shame not to get the win, and I think we struggled quite a bit with balance during the changing conditions. This race threw pretty much everything at us, but I still enjoyed it, and to leave with the car in one piece and still right at the sharp end of the championship is a great result.”
“That was such a tough race to navigate, with so many elements making it easy to slip up and lose a result. I’m proud of how the technical team handled the pressure, with clean stops and we called the strategy as best we could – plus the efforts to change the gearbox on the #63 before the race once again proved why we have the best engineering crew in the pit lane. All four drivers also kept their heads brilliantly where many others lost theirs. To have a one-two in the Drivers’ championship and be leading the Teams’ at this stage of the season is testament to the hard work we’ve put into the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo II. On to Spa!”
