This weekend saw the British GT Donington Event 2016, the championship decider for the popular series, as well as the final rounds for the supporting events including British Formula Three. The British GT series is split in to two sections, that for GT3 and that for GT4. The final round saw a two hour race on Sunday afternoon in glorious sunshine. Qualifying for GT3 had seen the Aston Martin of Derek Johnston and Jonny Adam claim the top spot from Alasdair McCaig and Rob Bell’s McLaren, with John Minshaw and Phil Keen in third place with their Lamborghini. The GT4 grid saw Jack Bartholomew and defending champion Ross Gunn on pole in their Aston Martin ahead of the McLaren of Sandy Mitchell and Ciaran Haggerty, and in third place, Graham Johnson and Mike Robinson in their Ginetta.
The race was, as is always the case with British GT, a closely fought battle with plenty of action making the two hours fly by, and no shortage of drama, including a wheel that seemed to be in the wrong place, and certainly not attached…
The race finished with the McLaren of McCaig and Bell taking the chequered flag for GT3, with Johnston and Adam’s Aston Martin in second and the Bentley of Rick Parfitt Jr and Seb Morris in third. The GT4 result saw McLaren on the top step again with Mitchell and Haggerty taking the win from Graham and Mitchell’s Aston Martin, and Johnson and Robinson Ginetta in third place. That means that Derek Johnston and Jonny Adam are the 2016 British GT3 champions, and Mike Robinson and Graham Johnson are the 2016 British GT4 champions, and worth noting that the GT4 team champions were the Team Hard RCIB Insurance entry in their first year in British GT.
As normal, there were plenty of support events as well as British Formula Three, with the BRSCC saloon car trophy, the Ginetta Racing Drivers Club, the Volkswagen Racing Cup and the Ginetta GT5 Challenge.
The teams are off to celebrate, and start planning for 2017, but in the meantime, here are some photos from this weekend.
