This weekend see’s the return of the Avon Tyres British GT Championship to Brands Hatch and that means it is the home race for a local team.
The Wrotham based Oman Air Porsche 911 GT3R from Motorbase will be looking to build on the success in recent races with Ahmad Al Harthy and Michael Caine behind the wheel.
The two hour race will be one of the highlights of the race weekend and indeed of the GT season but the home team are going to be hampered by yet another weight penalty.
Unbelievably the team have already been carrying 75kg of success ballast and they are now going to have to carry more ballast to the total of 130 kg. Yet the championship leading Trackspeed cars are carrying 75kg less than Oman AIR.
Speaking about the ballast and the weekend, Team Boss David Bartrum said: “Unfortunately, the Porsche has got yet more ballast. That hurts us badly as we’ve already got the exotic driver penalty.
“We’ve got another 20kg, which is particularly hard. Every time Trackspeed does well, we get more weight. It is getting very, very hard.”
“The season goes into a bit of a summer holiday for those teams that are not going into Europe for the big races. We hope to be part of that one day,” said Bartrum. “The car has had a good midseason rebuild with a routine service and we’re now ready for the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit. It is our home race, so we are looking forward to it immensely. It is very special.”
“We’re fourth in the championship, which is a fantastic effort, and we’ll work hard,” he said. “We’ve done that through consistency and race craft, rather than through sheer pace because we’ve not had it. We’ve qualified where we can, done very slick pit stops and the drivers have kept out of trouble. We’re the only team on the grid to have scored points in every round this year.”
Following a pair of one-hour free practice sessions on Saturday 10 August, qualifying for the seventh round of the Avon Tyres British GT Championship will start at 17.30. The two-hour race will start at 13.40 on Sunday 11 August.