A brace of top-10 finishes and a fastest lap from a packed and highly competitive grid were the highlights for Barwell Motorsport’s GT3 Heritage team on its GT3 Legends debut at Donington Park last weekend.
A stacked 29-car field of classic GT3 machinery proved a highlight of the annual Donington Historic Festival, with the twin 50-minute GT3 Legends races providing a welcome dose of naturally-aspirated noise to a healthy crowd that had turned out to watch.
Peter Moulsdale was joined by multiple British GT race winner Liam Griffin aboard the 2014 title-winning Ecurie Ecosse/Black Bull Scotch Whisky BMW Z4 GT3 Evo, while Adam Balon and Phil Keen were out to back up their podium performance in the recent GT3 Revival Series at Circuit Paul Ricard with the former Rhino’s Team Leipert Lamborghini Gallardo LP560 FL2 GT3.
Both crews produced eye-catching performances across the event, with each scoring a top 10 finish, and Keen again showing his class by setting the fastest lap of the opening race.
With the event stretching across three days, opening practice and Qualifying took place on Friday, but didn’t provide much time to allow for setup tweaks. A gearbox glitch on the Gallardo prevented Balon and Keen from backing up their promising pace from practice, with Balon having to complete Qualifying almost entirely stuck in gear. That made the fact he still set the 21st fastest time of the 29-car field an impressive feat. Griffin and Moulsdale had two laps scrubbed for track limits, but would start 15th, knowing they would have a stronger setup across the races.
Day one may have proved challenging, but that just set up a fighting performance for day two, with both Barwell GT3 Heritage cars making impressive progress across Saturday morning’s opening 50-minute race.
Griffin took the wheel of the Z4 and enjoyed a lightning start, running around the outside of Redgate to immediately pick up four places on the opening lap, while Balon did likewise, starting his own climb up the order with the Gallardo’s gearbox now cured of its electronic glitch after some fine work from the GT3 Heritage technical team.
Griffin’s opening stint went from good to superb when he worked his way well inside the top 10, settling lap times comparable with the top three as he battled past Jeff Smith’s ex-Phoenix Racing Audi to eventually run seventh by the time the pit window opened. A clean swap with Moulsdale got the BMW back out holding position and he continued the momentum by pulling a pass on Andrew Haddon in the former RJN Nissan GT-R to bag sixth. A top five looked on the cards, but the race was halted early after a nasty accident for Simon Watts’ Nissan coming out of the final chicane, which displaced the tyre barrier. Griffin and Moulsdale were therefore limited to sixth overall and fifth in their class.
After his fine start, Balon got into a tight fight with the former Black Falcon Mercedes-AMG SLS driven by Steve Osborne and the ex-TF Sport Aston Martin V12 Vantage of Shaun Lynn. Together all three cars toured up the order, with Balon making up six spots before pitting for Keen from 14th. With Keen being a Pro driver, the car had to spend an extra 35 seconds stationary on its stop, but once up and rolling the former Lamborghini Squadra Corse factory driver lit up the timing screens, setting the fastest lap of the race and becoming the first driver to dip into the 1m04s bracket. Despite his pace, the combination of the longer pit stop and the race’s early conclusion meant 14th would be the limit.
The finale on Sunday again brought the chance to move forward, with Griffin starting the Z4 from 14th and Balon going from 20th again. If his opening lap from the first race was good, Griffin's second was even better as he surged up to ninth on the opening tour, then making it eighth before an electrical issue began to hamper the BMW. Griffin was forced to make an unscheduled pit stop to reset the car before continuing, but by then the chances of a second strong result were gone.
It therefore fell to Balon and Keen to push on, and Balon again did so superbly across his opening stint, making up a handful of spots during the frenetic opening laps to run 14th. A well-judged move helped him pass Gregor Fisken’s ex-Trackspeed Porsche before rising to 12th just before the Ford GT shed a wheel into McLeans. That became 11th after the issue for the sister car, and Balon handed to Keen with the top 10 in sight.
Keen took over and rejoined on the tail of Jack Tetley’s Blancpain-liveried Reiter Engineering Lamborghini in a tight fight for ninth. Keen eventually got the better of the similar Gallardo to seal ninth place overall and eighth in class at the flag and cap an impressive debut for the team in the Motor Racing Legends-organised series.
“Donington was a great weekend, with a really enjoyable atmosphere and some great competition up and down the grid. Ultimately the issues in Qualifying gave us an uphill battle across both races, but both sets of drivers did brilliantly to climb the order and put us back at the sharp end. Liam was great on his first outing with us since British GT in 2017 and formed a superb partnership with Peter in the Z4. Their race one charge was a real highlight and they were on for another top result in race two before the system glitch that had to be reset. Adam and Phil were hamstrung by the gearbox issue in Qualifying but really went for it in the races and their attacking performances were great to watch. Phil’s outright fastest lap also shows the potential of these cars and bodes really well for the next GT3 Revival round at the Le Mans Classic in July.”
