LIVE | British GT | R9 THE DECIDER! | #DoningtonDecider

[Music] [Music] so [Music] hello and welcome everybody to the final round of the 2021 intelligent money british gt championship as is tradition these days we're at the donington park grand prix circuit for what is set to be an intense dramatic and exciting two hours of racing over the course of the two hours we will crown the final set of champions with five teams still in contention for the gt3 title the championship being led by dennis lind and leo machitsuki in their bar while lamborghini they've got an 18 and a half point cushion over yama berman and ian loggie for ram racing with phil keene and michael igo sandy mitchell and adam ballen and andrew howard for beach dean amr all still in contention it's been a fascinating season so far one of the most competitive for quite some time with a number of different teams reaching the top step of the podium we've had dramatic races including the last visit here to donington park in the summer and this one is set to be no different with such a competitive field of cars you can always expect the unexpected and after a dramatic qualifying session yesterday that is certainly the case here this weekend there is the threat of more rain we've had that a few times earlier on this year as well and if that happens it could throw all of the pre-event predictions well and truly up in the air yesterday's qualifying session certainly saw its fair share of drama in particular issues for the championship leaders leo machits with a spin in his part of qualifying he went into the gravel thankfully no damage done and he was able to get back out on track after a red flag period to set another lap time the championship leaders will start from sixth on the grid on pole position though will be one of their big rivals phil keane and michael i go for wpi motorsport starting at the front in gt4 meanwhile well that championship has already been wrapped up will burns and gus burton champions after a fantastic race victory their third of the year last time at alton park however the gt4 pro am championship that is still very much up for grabs it's darren turner and matt topham for newbridge motorsport who head the championship standings 14 and a half points clear of the fox motorsport mclaren of jamie stanley and nick halstead winners at stetterton a few weeks ago and regular visitors to the gt4 pro and podium they will be looking for a good result here and they don't have a success penalty to serve which surely will aid their championship fight their nearest rivals meanwhile are the impressive assetto motorsport squad of charlie robertson and mark sansom bringing their new ginetta g56 into the championship this year they finally got their first pro-am victory in the second race at a wet alton park the fourth and final team still in contention are the toyota kazoo racing uk squad john ferguson's got jamie caroline back alongside him this weekend for the second meeting in succession and john is mathematically still in contention with the pro and title [Music] this is it then another hard and exciting season of racing in the intelligent money british gt championship comes down to this it is the donington decider two hours of racing around the donington park grand prix circuit mixed conditions we've got five teams going for the gt3 championship we've got titles in gt4 yet to be decided as well this is going to be an absolute ball storm where i can just feel it the track temperature though is low it is only 12 degrees it's been raining all morning stopped raining about half an hour or so ago but the track is going to take quite some time to dry and that just throws an extra bit of spice into the mix teams are really going to have to think carefully about their tyre strategies we'll get into that in a few moments time but it's certainly going to add extra complications to this all-important championship decider we've got a good crowd on a hand not just trackside but on the track as well with grid walks and pit walks making a very welcome return to the championship this weekend just another step in the right direction isn't it towards normality and we're so so happy to see the continued support of this fantastic championship andy mckeown up here in the commentary box ready and raring to go it's gonna be a really exciting race this delighted to be reunited for this one with joe osborne as well who knows a thing or two about uh gt racing and racing in the british gt itself and joe you know a thing or two about driving around this place in slightly sketchy conditions yeah i don't think you could have nailed it any better yeah last year i was lucky enough to be on pole position uh in the mclaren gt3 and conditions like this probably the main difference was the track temperature as you alluded 12 degrees today uh that day was more like 24 25 so the track did dry we gambled started on slicks it was the worst decision of my life for the first three laps as i plummeted down the order but then suddenly it came good and we were back at the front again after those slicks really activate they get hot and then they get grip today i think the first hour with the ams in those cars i think there's going to be wets and it's going to be who can hang on those wets and not kill them before sort of the mandatory pit stop in that uh in that first hour of the race yeah it's uh it certainly makes things challenging when mother nature intervenes and uh an extra challenge is really not what any of these teams wanted especially those that are going for a championship well there is a third member of our team that you'll be hearing from and hopefully seeing quite a bit of over the course of the next couple of hours down in the pit lane and now on the grid is bryn lucas and bryn i know you're just as excited as we are you know what the amount of times this season that you've thrown down to me and it's been absolutely hammering it down or it's felt like it anyway and right now it's dry and i tell you the wind has picked up a bit it is starting to dry but the track is unbelievably greasy which means it's going to prove to be quite an exciting start of the race so if you cast our minds back to what happened earlier in the season here at donington it doesn't have to rain for it to be exciting but it is extremely greasy and you can see the cars are now starting to come out onto the track over my shoulder there's also a really good atmosphere on the grid because we have fans on the track side which is great to see it's really nice to see all these wonderful people who have come to donington park for the donington decider and i've also got sam neary here and sam's dad is starting fourth at the moment on the grid with his dad or third with your dad is it slick sam or is it wet at the minute it looks like wets you know it doesn't look that wet but when the car starts going around you'll see how a spray lifts up uh hopefully towards the second step we will get to slick so we'll make that overtaking really difficult uh when you're on slick so you know it really is a gamble and we'll see what happens what are your thoughts on to the weather or is it going to stay like this for the rest of this race or do we think it's going to start to rain at some point it all depends what weather up you look at to be honest uh we we think it's going to stay uh stayed as dry conditions now so hopefully we'll get slicks by the end and uh if richard get us up into p1 uh hopefully that will be it and we know we know how good your dad can be off the start as well so we'll have to wait and see what happens we wish you the best of luck for today thank you very much yeah thanks brian thanks sam sam one of the really impressive youngsters that this championship has produced over the last year or so and yeah his father richard who he shares that car with when we raced back in the summer here at dollington park richard started the race 10th when they came out of the first corner he was second that is what brings alluding to a very very committed race starter is richard neary we look forward to seeing what he can do today now then let's uh let's paint the championship picture shall we then most of the interest is on gt3 and in particular this car carnival 63 for barbell motorsport they're the reigning champions remember they wrapped up the title at silverstone uh just under 12 months ago and now they've got two cars in contention for the championship in 2021 is leo machitsuki who almost has contact with the gt4 toyota before he even gets to the grid uh who leads the championship with his teammate dennis lind they have an 18 and a half point cushion over ram racing's pink mercedes number six of y'all moberman and ian loggie and then it's very tight they're just two points ahead of phil keenan michael i go who starts the number 18 wpi motorsport lamborghini from pole position today although they do have a success penalty serve we'll get into that in a little while uh they are then in turn six points clear at the second of those farmwell cars sandy mitchell the reigning champion with adam ballen in car number one and then the fifth car that is in contention is the number seven beach dean aston martin of andrew howard although that is a little bit of a long shot so liam chitsky brings the car around to the grid to be greeted by brynn lucas and dennis lindt well qualifier may have not gone completely to plan for you dennis but how are your nerves for this race ahead of the championship decider i think i'm more nervous now than i will be when i get in the car obviously it's a bit difficult to leave the responsibility to another person but obviously leo i think is probably one of the most experienced drivers on the grid in terms of changing conditions we've done a lot of international racing so he's used to this kind of stuff just saw yelmer walk past as well now they're the two but that's the other team really they're really fighting for yelmer berman in logy they're starting one position ahead as well so what's your message to leo off the start well obviously they have to win uh we just need to finish third and at the moment they're on the ones under pressure because the position we're in now we're going to win the championship so obviously we want to move ahead but it's not really crucial i told you that you know we we should just try to keep up they all have penalties everyone that we're fighting with um so if we're within those 20 seconds sounds like a good plan but you know plans sometimes don't go to plan yeah hopefully it goes better than last time we were here so we want to do a little bit more than one corner this time yeah good luck thank you thank you [Music] dennis lynn referring of course to the contact that he had with the car that actually drove past him as he made that comment the number 18 wpi motorsport lamborghini now joe tires this is going to be a big talking point you mentioned this earlier on wets or dries which way do you go ideally they'd love to go somewhere in between wouldn't they but they are restricted to those two choices yeah exactly in formula one we see many tyre compounds from pirelli not just slicks the intermediates and the full wet gt racing we don't have intermediates it's a sort of a cost saving thing it saves teams having to have three types of tyre but you can sort of rudimentary make an intermediate from an old wet so the old wet is basically done a few laps in heat cycles and that hardens the rubber so it's better at lasting in these conditions so the top teams will literally even on a dry test day we'll go out on a set of wets and just take the tops off them so they've got less tread they're that bit harder so you've got like a an old school intermediate and that's exactly the tire that these conditions want today i would uh suggest yes the question is of course if it dries when does it dry uh there is a mandatory pit stop for all of the teams coming in the middle part of the race ideally that's when they like to switch from the wets to the slicks brynn back to you ian loggies in the car yellen berman you're standing outside of it and over your shoulder is the 63 of leia machitsu and dennis lint just saw you walk past them it's all for you isn't it you have to fight and fight and fight to get anything out of this race yeah absolutely i mean we've got a 10 second pizza penalty from the last round and uh yeah ideally we would try and at least have that 10 second gap to like some cars behind us because as we know this track is not ideal for overtaking but i'm sure in the end with all the mixed conditions and so on a lot will happen so talking about conditions though the mercedes looks good in these greasy conditions compared to the lamborghini yeah i mean usually we're quite happy with these conditions it's a bit of a question still to me what the rest of the track is i haven't had time to speak to you in yet but i can imagine that there are some corners which are already where already is some kind of a dry line so that makes it then a bit more difficult because obviously you know there's only one line so it'll be difficult to overtake then but by the time we get in so in about in about an hour most of the tracks should be dry all right it's gonna be a fascinating two hours good luck thanks yeah thanks bryn uh yelmer bourbon he's an old pro at this stage isn't he he knows what he's doing ian loggie's been around uh for quite some time as well so a very very safe and experienced pair of hands in theory can they do it can they overhaul that 18 and a half point kushner will it be this car that does it they're only two points further back phil keane and michael i go they start from pole position and they won in the wet last time at alton park joe that's great it means their form is really good uh but not great that uh they're gonna have to carry the maximum success penalty uh for this final race uh in fact maybe we can get their thoughts on this because brynn lucas is down there with phil keane yeah phil's just been there talking to michael phil the plan of attack you're good at donington what can you do what are you talking to michael about well you know we just need to win the race to be honest so we're going to try and go as fast as we can from the off and and see how it unfolds what do you think is going to happen weather-wise track-wise grip-wise i think it's going to be wet for the first half an hour 45 minutes and then i would have thought we'd be on slicks for our stint but i think the moment of the plan is to just run michael as long as we can on the wets because you lose quite a lot of time coming in and changing and you're not really gonna it has to be a big deficit on slicks to catch back up again to you know make up the fact you lose so much in the pits so and you want to banish what happened at donaldson last time out as well yeah so if we can make the first corner 50 better aren't we yeah uh yeah not hard to improve on what happened uh last time we were here at doddington park joe it's about time phil keem won one of these things isn't it yeah he's obviously the most winningest driver in british gt in terms of races but the championship has eluded him super great guy first thing he comes across quite monotone like myself but he is a fiery character behind the wheel shared cars with him and raced against him and he's one of the best out there and he's he does deserve it we see the mclaren 720s gt3 morgan tilbury i would say actually morgan's been the most improved driver of the year uh first race started in the barrier bronze hatch on the formation lap which is all types of special that he alluded to himself and yes so we saw some real pace room really top two contender in the am session is his brilliant progression these conditions will be a new thing for him it's his first season of gt3 he won't have that experience that the igo the loggi and the machiskies have so that's going to be the hard element for him the mechanics look happy jeff the number one mechanic there prepares one of the best cars on the grid so let's see where she goes and this is one of the fascinations of this race really because we've got a title contender on pole in the shape of wpl motorsport and then enduro motorsports second and team aberrations mercedes third not in championship contention in a way i think those two cars between them could have the deciding say in who wins this championship because they're in amongst the championship front runners with less to lose oh 100 and the one thing i think that's easy to overlook we mentioned the amateur aspect of racing these amateurs generally all have a really big ego and i mean that in a positive way they're successful business guys but they rub each other up the wrong way out of the car and there's quite a few ams that i'm not going to name that don't like each other and some are in the championship and some aren't so i think you're going to see that in the body language of the car how they defend how aggressive they are on the front foot i think there's a lot of interesting pieces to this puzzle that are yet to fall into place okay interesting racing drivers not agreeing with each other who'd have thought it now gt3 is exciting so too though is gt4 on pole position is the stella motorsport audi and bryn lucas is down there with them well as i came up to send i said pole position not bad at all and you said um yeah it wasn't quite expected and thankfully we are here it gives us the best position going into today so hopefully like i said i've got richard in the card to start with i've got so much faith in him as long as he just does a good job keeps his nose clean i think we're in a very good position for today's race now i don't like to be the bearer of bad news and things but last time at donington it didn't go to plan for you guys so you want to banish these demons i spoke to phil keene a moment ago and they're saying the same thing yeah definitely obviously last time here there's with motorsport you have the technical issues that happen every now and then so we're putting that behind us we're moving on forwards and we're here to show what we can do it's the last race of the season and we just really want to end this season on a high um and especially stellar mode sport they deserve it more than anything finish on a high finish on the one spot yeah that's the aim good luck thank you very much cheers yeah thanks brian brilliant to have the audi on form always has gone well around here good looking car though as well isn't it jan yeah especially with its new liver it's almost a bit of an art car so i guess you could say it's the stellar out to our car um it'd be interesting to see where it goes but i think that audi has been overdue a good good run here uh and both set and there and his teammate richard williams are absolutely flying there and interesting leo rocheski's helmet there that thing on the front it's an air vent so leo obviously runs a little bit hot and that's going to be pumping cool air directly into his face so be interesting to see uh how he looks after his stint potentially a little hot and bothered i would imagine he's gonna have a stressful basically hour of driving ahead of him hasn't he uh right then time i think for uh one more chat down on the grid because within gt4 there are plenty more uh contenders and lots of stories to unfold we've got this pro-am uh championship battle going on uh within the the gt4 ranks and the pro-am championship with gt4 is being led by new bridge motorsport matt topham will start the car and he's down there with brynn all about pro-am and yourself and darren looking very very solid aren't you yeah that's the most nervous yes i've ever heard that's exactly where we are um we just gotta keep it safe today just gotta try and drive the nuts off this thing in this weather it's variable it's gonna be fun just go enjoy it what's it like going into this particular race you know because without you know trying to trying to put any kind of jinx on you it is yours to lose yeah i mean it's i'm here to enjoy the race but i'm focusing on enjoying donna and enjoying the race today and see where we come out we're celebrating this season yeah it's just about the rating right now well you and darren have worked really well as a team so far this season just one more push right two more hours let's go good luck let's go get it matt topham absolutely refusing to be drawn on that championship question there he may have the right attitude to be honest just focusing on the race uh and not uh getting too wrapped up in the championship permutations that card does have a decent lead actually in the gt4 pro am championship darren turner and matt topham who have won the class three times the pro-am element of gt4 this year uh as well as a couple of out right gt4 wins they are 14 and a half points clear of jamie stanley and nick holstead in their fox motorsport mclaren number 40. charlie robertson mark sansom's asceto motorsport geneta number 56 is also in contention for the pro-am title and so too is john ferguson in the total kazoo racing uk toyota supra which i know is a very popular car with most of you watching at home grid starting to clear then as the the final preparations um are being made but we've got just about enough time i think to get down there and have a chat with john ferguson at the wheel of the lovely toyota supra it is a lovely toyota super it's also a lovely man john and you've had an unusual thing this season of changing teammates halfway through or near the end of the season absolutely yes indeed how's that gone as a you know learning curve and a relationship it's been fine to be able scotland's very quick but jimmy's came in and he's equally as quick and it's just a matter of trying to do the job today now we've we've looked at this circuit we've looked at the greasy conditions and it doesn't like it's going to be a tricky start so the game plan it's very very difficult so tempting to go and slicks whether it be just starting the pedaling and trying to stay within a lap at the start but certainly towards the end of the stint slicks are going to be the way to go listen you've got to fire the engine up so good luck cheers thank you very much john yes engine's starting to fire then because we are now almost good to go with a race start now the start uh format is gonna be a little different than planned uh as i've alluded to the weather conditions today less than ideal so they're gonna have two green flag laps uh to give them not just time to get used to the conditions but actually more to the point give them time to get heat into the tires it's not so much the wet track that is the concern it's the really low ambient temperature so they're getting two green flag laps in order to uh get plenty of heat into those pirelli wet tires that we imagine they'll all be starting on uh the two hours they will start to count down at the end of the first uh of those green flag laps so they'll do one lap the time will start they'll do another lap and then the racing will start in earnest and that rush into the first corner joe is gonna be really really tense especially for our championship leader in gt3 leo machitsuki in the middle of the pack and of course last time we raced here at doddington park he didn't come out the other side of redgate corner that's got to be playing on his mind yeah definitely and it was almost worse that wasn't anything leo did wrong he was an innocent bystander that got caught up in someone else's accident so his eyes are going to be on stalks for sure looking forward but he's got to have an eye on his rear view mirror as well in case someone dive bombs him and he can get out of the way and stop some contact it's uh interesting obviously all the tires would have been in a tyre oven so would have been operating temperature but we're now talking 15 20 minutes time they've been out there just losing temperature so the drivers now really got to get the car working hard not just in terms of weaving the accelerating braking phase is the best way to get core temperature into the tire on the brakes even though they're not carbon brakes we're still looking at an operating temperature of six seven hundred degrees so you can imagine that brake disc glowing and going all the way into the rim then into the tyre and then hopefully to the tread and giving you that bit more grip but it looks greasy as anything out there it does doesn't it here then is how they line up for the donington decider it is wpi motorsports michael igo that starts from pole position they will have the maximum 20 second success penalty to serve though so the start is crucial they need to try and stay out in front of morgan tilbrook in the enduro motorsport mclaren that starts alongside him richard neary starts third what can he do from there he's got another mercedes alongside him of ian loggie those two have history don't they so that will be a fascinating battle into the first term road number three then for adam ballard who starts car number one and leo machitsuki his barwell teammate both of them in contention for the title and they're right together on the grid you really couldn't script this uh the way that the gt3 grid has been formed round number four then of the grid is where we find nick jones in the team parker racing porsche that's been rapid on occasion this weekend and mia flew it in the team rocket rjn mclaren a race by race entry for them row five for andrew howard the last of the gt3 title contenders the panic motorsport bentley alongside the number nine bmw in the pit lane we'll get to that in a moment that's interesting stuart proctor and ian stinton are towards the back of the gt3 greedy in stington uh with tom and motorsport making a welcome return to the championship not running mclarens as we saw last time but with the big bentley then into gt4 richard williams in the stellar motor sport audi has the class pole position with michael benyer alongside in one of the three team rocket rjn mclarens round number two in the gt4 ranks is then where we will find the academy motorsport ford mustang of will moore and another will will burns in the 57th century motorsport bmw which wrapped up the overall gt4 title a month or so ago at alton park third row then for the gt4s is john ferguson in that toyota kazoo racing car with matt topham the pro-am gt4 championship leader for new bridge motorsport there he is sixth in the gt4 field row four then for chris sulkeld except he's not he's in the pit lane so james kell then will have that road to himself in the second of those rjm mclarens david holloway for century motorsport another new name with jack brown winner at spa without motorsport alongside him the second green flag lap begins now the time therefore has started to tick knock santa and katie milner are together on the next row of the grid getting down towards the back now of the 26 car field on the last row colin white in the cw race a cws racing ginetta and nick halstead in the fox motorsport mclaren which had a whole host of lap times disallowed yesterday uh in the qualifying sessions green flag is waved then the race has started but they will do one more warm-up lap before the race itself gets underway major storyline there really is that century remote sport bmw then carnival 9 it's fighting for second place in the gt4 points but seems to be in trouble yeah i think if it's qualifying being in the mid-pack of that gt4 they might have literally taken a raincheck excuse the pun and waited in the pits like i was saying that tyres have lost heat 15 20 minutes out of the oven they can start on hot wet tires and they can wait at the end of the pit lane and join the track once the fields passed lost six places but potentially that could be a second or two or lapping performance and they might get in that game so the way the team weren't panicked about the car it looked like it was premeditated it was up on its chat real nuts ready by the car i think that's a strategic call rather than the issue on their part okay that's interesting so century motorsport they're looking to make it a 1-2 in the gt4 championship the 57 car has already wrapped the title up the number nine arrives here at doddington park six and a half points behind car number two of jordan collard and james kell the mclaren and so that's gonna be a fascinating battle to watch as we move into the race a race then that is not that far away from starting the cars are lining up two by two so much to talk about here it's always one of the highlights of the season this the final round of the championship it was a silverstone last time because of a cobit affected calendar but the donington decider is back for 2021 and we're delighted to have you all on board so strap yourselves in this is gonna be an awful lot of fun it's michael i go then in the red wpi motorsport lamborghini winners last time at all to know like i said they've got an extra 20 seconds to serve in the pit lane and actually the other two success penalty uh laden cars in gt3 are also title contenders number one has 15 seconds and number six has 10. that will be significant when we get into the pit pit stops about halfway through the race uh but we will get to that in good time because for now through the final turn they come place your bets everyone this is going to be a fantastic two hours of racing then which is about to get properly underway now then the red lights go out we are away at racing at doddington park and immediately michael igo establishes himself as the race leader as they make their way towards redgate corner keep an eye to machitsuki he's still sixth as they turn into the right-hander and everybody minding their p's and q's not taking too many risks nicely single file through the turn richard neary on an absolute stormer and a round goes the mclaren further about that stuart proctor who wipes out one of the polystyrene marker boards but she'll be able to get going i go sideways richard neary second another good start there from neary yeah great control start by everyone everyone was very sensible sort of spacing between them as we see looks like that would have been by himself and i mean that theory wasn't close enough to put a move on him so we've seen two cars spinning three corners it's now starting to get on people's mind how slippy it really is you've seen two cars go off already people need to be looking at this and taking their time machiskey looks aggressive he's on the front foot all over the back of bannon but then howard's on the back of him showing his nose on the inside it gives him room maybe a faint touch and balance had to wait out of it and that's giving howard the opportunity now wow so leo chitsky a big big winner here one of their big championship rivals off the road and leo is in a fighting mood isn't he this afternoon he gets himself ahead of his teammate andrew howard follows him through as well as they now make their way to the game but chitski is sideways though he's really wide keeps it on the island but andrew howard pounces and here comes sandy mitchell three wide and all three of these cars are going for the title this is terrific stuff on board with mitchell up the inside there's a squeeze from andrew howard who comes across the nose of um the uh lamborghini and it is adam ballen then who looks as though no it's gonna be andrew howard who comes out of the corner ahead and now machitsuki fights back again the barbell teammates at play they did this at silverstone they did this uh at alton park last time out as well brilliant brilliant driving from all three of these joe what brilliant racing absolutely amazing so clean and we've seen three different cars in that pack leading but he looks like he's got the most pace for me he just needs to get it under control that late break into the chicane lock the rear axle and he was a passenger there they did well to continue as we see howard have a similar moment and that's going to get machiskey through and potentially balan follows through but he doesn't so i think this is now potentially the order they should be in pace wise but everyone's got a mistake in them and it's going to be who makes the least mistakes i'm glad we've only got one hour 55 minutes left they're all skating around on the absolute limit and this is what we mean it's not just damp but it's really chilly as well i just don't think they've got the tyre temperature that they need that will come to them though in theory over the next few laps this battle just carving down for a second machitsuki looking strong and getting away from them richard neary then is your leader by two seconds over morgan tilbrook in second ian loggias third andrew howard five places gained there that car was nowhere in the dry but the wet conditions are bringing andrew back into play and he now will chase on after the three ahead of him leo machitsu as we've seen breaking through into the top five as well down the chicane they go towards the chicane uh and into the grand prix loop what's going on in gt4 looks like it's still richard williams in the audi off in the background goes i go again that's the second time for michael i go and this time he's beached it in the gravel trap ah it was all looking so so good for wpi motorsport they backed the pole position with a spin on the opening lap and another off now at coppice and now i'm afraid joe is their title done yeah day done two spins two laps that's not how you mount the charge and just feel gutted one for michael i go but for phil keem he literally cannot buy luck in a donington decider i mean you couldn't even blame a lamborghini because you see balon and machisky are looking pacey looking really good so unless wpi have just maybe banked on it drying later and have gone with an aggressive stiffer setup which has made it hard for mica we're going to go on board here so obviously gt4s in front because of his previous spin underbreaking looks okay goes in picks the throttle up sounds okay at the moment little moment gets that little moment early and that should be his warning that the grip's not there you've got to be constant with the throttle you can't just jab it you hear the rear spin up 180 degrees of opposite lock there's no saving it from there and it is good night yeah that is such a shamey and loggy with a big twitch through starkeys as well so even the big mercedes is a little bit lively in these conditions but yeah michael i go phil keane then it looks like we could strike them from our championship contenders list because there they are still stuck in the gravel they're gonna go a lap at least down maybe two uh the live snatch vehicle there so we don't need a safety car to get that car recovered but that is their day done change for the gt4 lead meanwhile that is will more in the academy load sport ford mustang which remember was really strong in the wet back at snetat a few rounds ago getting ahead of richard williams in the audi that mustang in the wet is a real contender yeah definitely it looks great in the wet as well we saw it warm up it clears a lot of water but it's got such a good platform it's really square i think it might just be so heavy it pushes through the water to find some dry tarmac but everyone needs to be careful of that live snatch feeling vehicle sorry we've got double wave yellows and it's awful as a driver i can't as a driver we cannot be faster in that sector so as long as we're one temp slow we're not breaking the rules and then conditions like that with a jcb in that position you're really having to manage the risk as we see logging right on the back of tilburg here the interest in the sector three the traction of the cars engines in completely different parts of the car the mid-engine mclaren should get the better kick out of the corner where the weight is but then historically the mercedes with the front engine over the axle can carry a bit more entry and we're seeing that gap just decrease a little bit a bit too much on the dry line there for logging so that slippier part of the track you can see how much is lost out of turn one we're diving through crane the curves even this on board makes it look steep but once you're sat in that car your helmet on you can see nothing it's threading a needle at 200 kilometers an hour picking up through the apex through there we see the gt4s not that far behind the uh the leaders in gt3 and it shows you once you can't get that power down the differential between gt3 and gt4 is almost nullified in areas yes so the gt4 field being led by the mustang but williams seems to be struggling a little bit now doesn't he's got the number three car uh right behind him that's michael bennier michael actually with a good run through the old hairpin might be about to challenge then you've got the uh championship winning bmw right behind them as well of will burns this is a pretty entertaining battle here for second third fourth and even fifth actually with james kell closing in in the white and yellow rocket rjm mclaren so four of them as one and richard williams just slithering around a little bit more than the cars around him he's slower off the corners and then yeah is chomping at the bit here to make this move stick tricky to do though in these conditions yama berman alluded to it on the grid with bryn to overtake you have to go off that one ideal racing line and that is hard to do when it's wet yeah definitely uh all the drivers are searching for the grip and that's the big difference from wet running to dry running the dry line there is really only one line a few corners might have an interpretation of line but in the wet is a plethora of options where the grip is where it's drying more what the camber is what curve you want to use so the guys are still working that out and to me it looks like the the audi is really poor under braking it looks like it's got too much bias on the rear axle you can see the rear the car already rotating into these corners which would kind of say that the rear axles do too much work so i think maybe we need to look at a bias change as we see ben yard get the nose down and i think he's going to do enough to kind of block him out it's almost like a speedway past that on motorbikes when i get down and then hold him up williams could have had a better drive in a later apex but ben yar did an amazing job to kind of nip that in the bud yeah williams is now going to try and do the same thing though and get the run out of redgate to maybe challenge on the way down the craters but i suspect that will uh not quite work out yeah he's sideways on the exit to the mclaren stays ahead great variety on show again though within uh gt4 the class being led by ford mustang with the mclaren second and audi third the bmw in four and there look the aston martin in sixth position is matt topham still leading in the pro am categories and things looking good for their gt4 pro am championship charge down through the old hair but they slide and uh this sliding is actually going to get worse the drier the circuit gets because of course they're on tyres that require quite a good amount of standing water really and that just ate the standing water is that how quickly though do you expect the trap to dry so we're looking at we've still got another at least 45 minutes until the gt4s compare nearly 50 until so the gt3s so see now i go get released basically so he's being pulled out by the jcb and he's rejoining just before he went off so you can have another go trying to do it right straight away that is great uh but he's obviously already two laps down so it's going to be more just a bit of fun and testing times but yeah you're seeing cars coming off the line now to try and look for that water i i think we've timed it just right in terms of the pit window it's going to be when guys want to go slick we're understanding from the team in the pit lane that the number nine guy she started on slick so the gt4 we saw waiting there i mean that's it's a lot more stupidity than bravery in my opinion because of the amount of spray until there's no spray it's definitely not slicks until the lap time is within 10 to 12 seconds here at donington it's not slicks at the moment we're still 18 seconds away of a lot of spray so i actually would assume they're gonna have to box for wets because they're just gonna get so cold those slicks the only interesting thing if they do stay out and the other teams realize they're on slicks they're the barometer so as soon as that nine car starts getting some green with purple sectors the others know the track is getting in an area to be ready for those slicks that is a way away though because they're about 11 seconds a lap off the pace right now so uh they might have lost too much time that to ever really benefit them even in the long run but we'll we'll keep an eye to their lap times anyway on board with that matt topham then in the new bridge aston martin dropping down through the crater curves which would be wipers on the lazy setting here because it's not actually raining it's just to clear the bit of spray from the cars ahead this battle though is now starting to reignite isn't it because adam balon he had the fastest lap a while ago although richard he's now taking it on it and there's almost contact between the teammates machitsuki again got it wrong at the chicane and adam balon just and i mean just avoided what would have been uh an incredibly embarrassing and title-defining collision with his teammates yeah i mean a similar color car so the damage wouldn't have looked as bad but i think adam ballard had magnetic eyeballs on there he was looking at machiskey going a good 20k slow and almost looked like he just wanted to hit him he did an amazing job in the final moments to avoid contact but leo is struggling with that chicane he would be begging to be on the national configuration here i think and we're going the other way but balaam has really come alive as you said he's got past howard and then he's dropped him and he's all over machiskian ballen's come on a long way but machiski's got so much more experience in gt3 this is one of the best drives i've seen from balance so far and just look how smooth he is in the car for an amateur looks really relaxed his gear shifts with his hands and eyes i'm getting positive vibes from adam fallon here i'm thinking he's going to get past machisk in the next couple of laps how much of this you mentioned machitsuki's experience and yet he seems to be struggling we'll get back to that in a moment because everything has changed in gt4 will burns is now ahead of richard williams james kell closing in and in amongst it all you've got uh michael argo trying to unlap himself from the gt4 field in his gt3 uh wpr motorsport lamborghini also strewn property you can see in the background in his gt3 mclaren closing in on this group as well so strictly speaking the gt4s don't have to get out of argos way here although they'd probably be better served doing so around the outside there goes uh matt topham on the mclaren there that was a jack brown uh matt hopper and darren turner looked like they were gonna win at spa earlier on this year but they were given a trap limits penalty and it was actually the number 90 mclaren that they've just been battling with which inherited the race win on that occasion so these two have history in a way but yeah that was one of the wins that very much got away for uh for new bridge earlier on in the season that's what the point is about to make there about bachitsky you mentioned all of his experience and how you'd maybe expect it to be a bit more comfortable how much of this is just championship pressure do you think is he maybe overthinking things definitely i mean leo's aiming life is to be a champion he's a super aggressive guy with a very focused mindset i think it's a positive way of saying it about us we see adam with the inside line i almost feel like leo's giving him that let's see if he fights back too much there won't be team orders as such but there will be communication and it looks like leo's not happy he's saying in that sort of body language why are you overtaking me you're holding us both up but i think it's probably frustration at his own performance right now he should tuck in behind alan balon the complete opposite is what he's about to do and just follow him and he's going to find two or three tenths of a second of a lap that's going to pull him away from andrew howard and potentially pulling up to the top three like we know this position is enough for him in the championship where logi is currently so relax leo calm down baby just bring it home follow adam who's doing a great job and it's so much easier as he has a huge moment but then out of balance slow off the corner it's it really is emphasizing these tricky conditions it's hard to hook a lap up might be quicker for five corners then a big mistake totally negates whatever you just gained by being a hero in those five we're seeing better car control from these arms as the years go on but still it looks difficult in front completely different lines let's see who wins out of balance wider so it needs to be going faster to make that time over distance equation work for speed and it looks like he probably gained the 10 for two so leo needs to realize that and do the same next lap all very well because andrew howard is all over him that is an amazing break performance that aston martin looked like he was going to get fully alongside him but this is difficult for leo he definitely hasn't found a rhythm in the first 17 minutes of this race i don't know about leah but riding on board with him was making me nervous the car twitching around all over the place and the slightest knock the slightest mistake here from him or any of the cars around him honestly could end his dennis lin's championship aspirations so this is really nervy stuff here from leo so far so good he hasn't yet made a significant mistake at least not one that's come back to bite him uh but he is still under a lot of pressure from andrew howard there goes the second place battle morgan tulbrakey and lobby have been circulating within five or six tents for uh the last number of laps really but they're seven and three quarter seconds behind the race leader richard neary andrew howard on the inside of leo machitsuki into red gate corner gets the place but now leo might be faster on the exit he is faster on the x and he pulls back alongside and he will move back through dennis lind is really enjoying himself watching the race from the pit lane and he probably much rather be out there in the car at least then he's got full control of his own destiny but right now leo machitsuki he's not simply rolling over and letting people go is he whether that turns out to be the right thing or not we'll have to wait and see but uh certainly did not want to let andrew howard get past him yeah and andrew howard was properly aggressive there that was almost borderline lunch got it stopped so it was a great move in hindsight but leo's now realizing that andrew howard means business he's not here to have a nice ice cream to have his day off at the weekend interestingly when you see dennis he looked quite relaxed me and mortally he didn't have a headset on he has the opportunity to have a headset to talk to leo to coach him when i'm with these arms i'm screaming at him in a real nice positive way of what they should be trying to improve he's obviously thinking the best attitude here is just to let leo go with it which i think only time will tell if that was the correct decision or not andrew really is good on the brakes isn't he closes right back in on machitsuki through the chicane is he close enough to have a go down into the melbourne heaven i don't think he quite is right there we just saw dennis lind let's hear from him [Music] dennis we've been watching the race here we're watching leo in the car and also watching your face talk us through what's going on and the mistakes that are happening out there yeah i think it's it's difficult for them because the conditions are improving quite a lot and i think they're finding a hard time to figure out where exactly where to break where to get on the power so the track is drying up on the racing line but with wet tires you don't really have the same grip on the razor line when you're breaking and accelerating so i think they're just trying to find their feet at the moment and and leo is is a little bit slower than the other people at the moment so we'll see i think we're in a bit more uh conservative mode when it comes to tire pressure so i think we'll be a little bit quicker once the track tries to really dry up so um yeah we'll we'll have to see what happens we're still in an okay position so over your shoulders or sandy's watching the screen too have you had a word with you two to say to your drivers you don't care no no no i mean we've i mean we're here to race i mean it's not uh it's not like we want to do massive plays and you know team orders or anything i mean it's still an hour and forty to go a lot can happen uh we saw uh pulsar went off pretty early on and uh a couple of people are spinning out so you know there's still a lot to play for and yeah like i said it's not it's not really over yet but you're sitting there watching it as a teammate you said to me before we came to this moment here that you hate watching it well first for leo i mean i care for the guy he's become a very good friend over this year but also you know we have to [Music] you know it's our car you know we have to bring it home and i hate this view because every it looks like every corner is about to crash so it's a little bit too exciting please change there we go so so dennis is asking the shot to be changed we'll stay on it for a little while longer but dennis best of luck superstar racing driver and want to be tv director dennis lindner who uh yeah i'm sure wasn't enjoying that view because joe you were just saying to me whilst we were hearing from him leo looks so tense in the car and the car looks so twitchy yeah i mean the car really does react on your inputs and like i said about adam balon earlier how relaxed his arms they look like they had dampers in themselves as we see a gt4 battle that's that slick shot gt4 getting lapped essentially uh by its gt4 rivals so yeah leo was a complete opposite it looked like he bend dying girders with how strong and are like stiff his arms were that's the same with the car if you do that steering wheel certainly the car reacts faster and it's giving you more work to do and then it's a perpetual motion downwards the car's harder to drive you get more stress it gets worse and then by the end of it you crash and uh let's see and that's why i'm surprised they're not trying to manage leo a bit better relax leone just bring him back be so strong over the radio and really change the attitude of the driver in the car yeah absolutely and he's still got a lot of this stint to do as well so yeah those nerves aren't going to change anytime soon right that is the number three mclaren which is now ahead of the number 61 ford mustang that's for the lead in gt4 so michael benjard doing a really good job here getting himself ahead of will more so the mclaren that leads the mustang leads the bmw in the background the 57 car this group just as joe said put a lap on chris sulcult in the uh slick shot bmw and obviously like he was standing still really struggling out there still clearly not the right conditions for those slick tyres the right conditions though for michael benny and he's one of these drivers in the mclaren driver development program joe i know that you do a lot of work with them and you'll be very familiar with them his best showing of the year this i'd say by far massively michael's rate of progression has been unreal from the start not really knowing much about british gt a little bit in the gt4 mclaren but not much and then to suddenly leading a british gt race and that's really what a driver development program is all about is getting someone with raw talent and shaping it and polishing it until they sort of turned into the diamond that they should be and it's brilliant to see a little bit proud dad moment so yeah still got another 40 minutes left to do so just needs to keep going but the pace is really starting to drop across the field we've seen the gt3s now have upped their pace by a couple of seconds in the last lap into the 42s we saw these guys andrew howard's had a spin looks like a red gate doesn't look like it's particularly damaged there would have been an early spin that in terms of where he was rejoining so i wonder if he even lost it on the brakes as he comes through the first sector we get an idea that he's lost eight seconds with that spin so he's now gonna re-do all that hard work no positions lost but luckily for leo machiskey that is now an eight-second buffer to a very aggressive andrew howard uh yes unfortunately before leochinski though he's about 15 seconds behind ian lockheed now that's significant because he at loggy's pit stop will be 10 seconds longer than the championship leaders now that almost looks joe like that might have been a little bit of a touch andrew was actually trying to get past machinst at the time he spoke yeah 100 agree i think that's howard on the inside of machiskey and they've made contact probably howard's front left to machisky's door area and then when the car's on the brakes that strangely physics say the outside car should always spin because of the extra inertia put into it but the car is probably so on its nose andrew howards then just loops the rear around so leo's been super lucky there i'm 99 sure the contact will be light enough where there's no damage there's no particularly intricate parts on the lamborghini in that door area potentially a bit of still damage that won't help the aerodynamics on the diffuser but i think leo has been really lucky there like i said andrew howard was a bit lungy the previous few laps and i think he's probably taking that one step further and tried to stick a flake on on leo absolutely did that um to be fair leo majitsuki has been quite lucky on a few occasions in this first 25 minutes actually there are a couple of times where that really uh could have gone wrong that incident is under investigation so race control didn't quite like what they saw there either so they're going to see if there is any blame to be uh dealt out to presumably andrew on that one we'll give you more news on that adam when we get it right gaps at the front of the field are coming down now richard neary having shot off at the start uh built up nearly a seven second buffer that's down to four point seven now these two morgan tilbury and logging sort of spurring each other on they're not really battling each other either and their lap times are consistently a second plus uh quicker than the race leader richard neary and then the point i was making about ian loggie with really the demise of the wpi card i think it's fair to say that logi and thurman are now really machitsuki and lin's biggest championship threats they have a um 10 second success penalty to serve after finishing on the podium last time at alton park and uh they are currently 15 or so seconds ahead of a chipset so they're likely to come out of the pit lane ahead of the car that leads the championship right we're gonna get a replay now of uh something that was happening a little bit earlier on there goes the number one car through the melbourne hairpin adam ballard running in fourth place this is on board joe with leonard exactly so this is the corner in question with the lucky question andrew howard's gonna be on our right hand side just listen with any contact oh yeah it's really slight really slight i'd actually say from the audio it might have been on the rear wheel and i think the moment leo's head's tiny but shows you how small that contact was i can't see any marking at all on that car which would allude again it's probably more wheel to wheel and that's taken some of the impact but fine margins andrew howard was obviously on the limit and that extra bit of contact was enough as we see that slick bmw having the slowest race of its life i mean i'm trying to think of a positive outcome that they can have a really long safety car and the track drives and everyone else boxes for slicks but then they're gonna have to box to do their driver change so it's maybe save them a set of wets that they didn't have to buy there you go save some money there you go thrifty race strategy from uh century motorsport uh you think they'd have the money to throw at a new set of tires anyway having just wrapped up the uh gt4 championship but uh difficult afternoon ahead i think for those two it's been a difficult start to the race for geneta as well because the setup motorsports car is off down at the old hairpin mark samson has had a rotation by the looks of it so so easy to do that if you run too wide get a wheel on that painted curve coming out of the right-hander tends to split the car over into that vicinity so i'd imagine that's what happened and rejoins right in front of me and flew it and michael i go who's had quite enough drama for watson thank you very much and that was quite a scary moment yeah as you said on the painted surface has always got less adhesion than the tarmac if you then add throttle into the equation that rear left would have just spun up and sent him that way yeah i mean the rejoining wasn't good enough we need to look at that if you go off the problem is your heart is absolutely racing and you're a bit embarrassed you just want to get going so you just drive driving across the track in front of two gt3 cars probably isn't the best way of achieving that we're now really seeing the traffic come into play usually we'd see this quicker earlier in the race or in slick running conditions but the wet that gap is smaller so richard near he's having to really work his way through doesn't look like he's lost too much time on his previous couple of laps and i think the advantage of that mercedes have it's actually running its endurance light so you see where those fog lights historically would be on a car they're running there it's pretty dark here but they're not needed but that's definitely going to give the gt4s an easier time in seeing them coming so that's quite a wise move by abba to run those extra lights uh speaking of headlights by the way the yellow headlighted cars if you're new to british gt they are the gt4s the white headlights belong to the gt3s just a handy little way of distinguishing between the two classes now in gt4 and we've got the ford mustang versus the bmw this is for p2 wilbur's running around the outside of will more into the chicane that's not going to work on the way in but he'll be much much quicker out of the chicane fires himself down the hill and gets up the inside so side by side almost for second place here if the bmw's late enough on the brakes though i think wilbur should go through and wilmore couldn't turn in because the bmw was there willmore loses out there up into second place in the class goes to bmw of will burns but they're about three and a half seconds behind ben yeah so we'll be interesting now to see burns's pace once he's uh finished off the job here of getting basketball down because balls coming back at him now through the last corner but whether or not he's able to set sail after the leader is going to be really interesting to watch nearly half an hour in then to the donington decider here the race being led over all by richard neary by five and a half seconds over morgan tilbrook and ian loggie championship leader leo michitsky is running in fifth position within gt3 which would at the moment be enough to give them the championship there is the uh third place car in logy which now really is uh machitsuki's big title rival getting very very crossed up amongst the gt4 traffic struggling to make progress here and you can see the way that morgan tilburg has just started to gap in the gap up to 1.4 seconds which is just about the biggest it's been i think at any point in the race dealing with the batmark has just made that much trickier by the fact that it is wet and greasy out there you've got to go off the ideal line to get past them and of course the tires are now starting to go past their best as well replay here joe of what happened wow kind of rolls reverse there didn't expect to see a gt4 car coming down the inside of logging like that and uh loggie did amazing like that so you see him obviously in front of that gt4 mclaren the gt former clown of james kell it hasn't actually got him that far so i think loggie was maybe a bit conservative on the brakes and that's taking kell by surprise and his only option was to go for that gap on the inside from a small mistake maybe on both drivers part they both did really well to avoid a larger accident that's potentially happening there yeah a lot worse that again for a championship contender so they're not having it easy here are they logging though already is closing in on tillbook i think he is definitely quicker than morgan uh but now has to do a bit of work to get uh back onto his tail we're on board with the big mercedes as it rumbles its way down to the melbourne hairpin and turns into the sharp right hander later on the brakes and a wider line for logging this should make him quicker off the corner as well and uh yeah he manages to keep that gain that he made going into the corner on the way out of it as well and by the time they get to redgate this time i think he might just be thinking about having a go to get past morgan till but they've got no traffic around them getting in the way he's had a decent exit there from the final turn and he's certainly on the attack he comes out of ballard meanwhile he is now nearly 11 seconds clear of leo buccinski as well so joe i think even once all of these success penalties are served i'm not actually convinced that number 63 is going to improve on fifth place yeah it's looking difficult it's going to be all about how these cars react when they go to slicks i'm pretty confident that everyone is going to put slicks on in the pit stop so when the pro gets in the car is going to be on those tires now who's made what cool have people gone with a full wet setup have they got a halfway house or they stuck with their dry set up and just bolted some wets on those setup changes there might be small little differences but could honestly add up to eight tenths to a second of a lap if you've got a wet set up with slicks on versus a full dry set up so we're gonna see a lot of topsy-turvy driving here today i think historic fast pros might be knee capped a little bit if the team decided to gamble on a wetter setup uh obviously we still don't know what the weather's gonna do as we see top and run onto the grass a bit there as well um this gt3 gt4 traffic is always intense it certainly is now it's been doing some oh that's me a fluid pointing the wrong way red gate so i'll get on to my mathematics that i've just been doing in a moment mia uh had a bit of a moment up here i noticed earlier on in the race as well thankfully didn't quite go backwards far enough into the gravel to get buried so she's able to uh get back on the move again mia put in a decent effort actually qualifying yesterday so a shame that her opening stint of the race has not gone quite to plan right the maths i've just been doing uh with machitsuki languishing down in fifth position unlikely maybe to gain any positions out of the pit cycle as well as things stand uh the off goes will more i will get this point out in a moment will more wide at the hair be right in front of our second place battle uh but ian logging i don't think he's quite gonna be close enough to morgan tilbuck heading into redgate corner sweeps the outside of the fourth mustang and closes in under-breaking but not quite close enough to make the overtake tilburg runs wide though almost out onto the curb and now long he definitely has a chance and he knows it he's trying to distract his tilde there by flashing the headlights at him the pressure's starting to tell baby ian loggie uh looking far more committed in trying to find a way through here then he has been up to this point has a peek to the inside of the old hair pink can't do it there through the right-hander tillbrook again sideways on the exit this time lockheed has the run he's in a bit of a slipstream but just couldn't quite carry the speed through starkeys yeah i think we're seeing a great demonstration of balanced performance here so new people to gt racing we've got this system called the balance performance how do you make mercedes the same speed as a mclaren as a porsche as a ferrari balanced performance so the mclaren for example is only 550 horsepower it's a big slide on entry looking great super style points here for morgan so the mclaren is only 550 horsepower with the road version 720 that's to try and make it even to the mercedes there's ballast in some cars there's ride height adjustments and i think the mercedes looks strong under braking so i think it may be a little bit lighter but then i think the mclaren has more torque and a bit more punch and you see it just stretch that gap in a straight so getting close to the second place gt4 car will burns being clever in terms of positioning the car in the middle place this is where i'm gonna drive you can go left you can go right but i'm not gonna help you out here but that really has happened morgan three wide into the last corner i think morgan tilburg can cover this off as long as he doesn't break too late just need to rotate the car square off stop logging getting a run and he can maybe just squeeze him a little bit on the exit to make lovely lift just as he said that that was on invoice after the driver picture that worked out perfectly it's almost like you know what you're talking about joe that was really close to contact though coming out of the corner uh through the uh right hand uh red gate they go and uh they are about now to put a lap on the gt4 leader that gt4 lead gap coming down as well so will war will burns i should say is catching michael bainyard now morgan tilburg runs wide and this is loggi's chance goes to the outside almost has contact with the gt4 leader that was a bit scary but loggie has gone through that was uh that was exciting definitely and it looked hard mike i saw michael actually indicate to his left-hand side at the top of crainers to show that he's going to leave the gap but the pace difference so he might not just see it but the mclaren is indicating left at this moment but then realizes that he's going to lose too much time so has to close the door and now tillworks in an awkward state where i go right for the inside of the old hairpin but that's where bennyard goes and lockhee's in the really lovely position of just being able to fill the gap wherever it was and that's where it's nice being the second place car when you're the leader of the pack in that instance the stress is on you to make the right decision i think this is going to release logging we've now got a mercedes in one and two and i think logi's got the pace on niri so the gap is now five seconds at this moment in time we're still going to probably get another what we're going to get 11 or 12 laps of this stint so it can be interesting to see what that gap does and now suddenly the possibility of a ram racing win is a bit more on the cards isn't it if that number six car can win the race by the way 63 must be on the podium to retain the championship now that didn't really look like a particularly likely set of circumstances at the start of the race but as this first stint has developed machitsuki's faded vloggy coming to the front suddenly i reckon ian and yelmer are starting to think this might actually be doable on board now with the fox motorsport mclaren this car being uh driven in the opening by nick holstein who's charged up through the order actually started right at the very back of the field remember and nick halstead is now running about halfway through the gt4 field in fact he's got the pro am leader ahead of him topham so this is for the battle for the lead in the pro-am race in gt4 also the top two cars in the pro-am championship here it's the aston martin that's got the points advantage so the mclaren really could do with getting through they're also being lapped by gt3 cars that themselves are on different laps to each other nick jones in the porsche michael argo in the lamborghini so much going on here for the drivers if you're in this gt4 battle you're fighting for position you've got quicker cars coming through you've got the tricky track conditions i don't know how they do it yeah you can see the amount of information the driver's got in front of him as well obviously he has to get that move done close the door by squeezing him out wide but then runs wide himself gives topping the advantage i would say i'd rather be topping at this moment in time the inside of the first part of hollywood huge slide that was amazing car control i hope he did that for a bit of added flair to house ted to kind of go this is what i'm about you can see on board the house said we've got the main dash or the road car there you've got the pit lane timer the blue racial logic box there's a delta type below that there's a rear view camera that you've got three sets of mirrors as well so it is sensory overload and then you can introduce the wet damp conditions it is hard work and you can see nick working away at the wheel looks like that mclaren is really good in this mid corner phase so it's got a good set and then it gets out well so he's probably going to look to do a similar move i think out the last corner into redgate on the following lap okay we shall watch for that closes in through coppice but then sort of can't do anything with it really um there has been a 10 second stop go penalty applied for the ginetta by the way for an unsafe rejoicing that happened a while ago in fact it's being served now just haven't really had time to tell you about it because everything's kicking off out on the circuit the mclaren though turns here through the chicano we can see from this on board compared to what we've seen from the gt3 mclaren joe that they really are very different cars to drive aren't they yeah definitely uh obviously they inherit the same chassis in the carbon fiber top that's made in sheffield in the uk the same v8 twin turbo engine different power outputs but same sort of architecture in the drivetrain but the gt4 is predominantly road car that's what the regulations do to try and keep the cost down so our mclaren is 80 road car 20 race parts and the gt3 is a complete opposite it's only 20 road car 80 race car so inside the cockpit here that is all the normal dashboard the same center console we even use the same air conditioning so to drive it it's a lot easier to feel the grip it's that much heavier that bit softer less extreme is a kind of an easier way of summing it up but no less difficult to drive fast it doesn't matter the car to be the fastest is always difficult and you're really seeing nick doing a mega job of keeping obviously with matt top and matt's in his first year british gt but much younger so we've always got a bop of drivers here agent experience both ways is kind of working out an even balance this moment in time that top and of course came out of cater and racing so he's used to having a car that slides around underneath him which is just as well because that aston martin is going sideways more often than he's going forwards it seems fills more of the track that way i suppose it is a possible defensive technique won't be doing much good for the rear tyres though there's the car that started on the gt4 pole position meanwhile richard williams has fallen down the order quite some way now he's currently running in uh eighth position in gt4 having started on the poles so definitely struggling in these conditions could be set up could just be uh confidence in the car perhaps and he's now coming under pressure actually from john ferguson in the toyota defensive line taken by the aston martin into the chicane halstead really closing him he's too late on the brakes that time runs out wide now how far behind was the audi of richard williams has he been able to get a run on the fox motorsport car but find out uh no actually because he in turn is under threat and indeed being overtaken by katie milner who slides the rocket rjm mclaren on the inside line but she'll be slow on the exit ferguson closing as well and of course ferguson did tangle with one of these rj mclarens at this very corner a few months ago so hopefully no repeat of that yeah exactly we're seeing a bit of a transformation of cars i think again as the truck keeps drying out it's now maybe not so much about the setup that i mentioned earlier what about tire pressures so at the start of the race you want them to get hot as quickly as possible so the grip's there for the driver to attack but you've got to leave those pressures for a whole hour and they really do evolve they always rise as it gets hotter when you get to a point if they get too high it literally feels like you're driving around on beach balls there's no grip the tire doesn't get any squish in the tire wall so it doesn't roll into grip and you're really just relying on the surface block but then because you're on the surface block that starts to overheat which then in turn makes the tire pressure even higher so you've sometimes got to find i think that's what we're finding on the rear axle of that car you actually heard from the camera a good 100 meters away the entire squeal there and i think nick houston needs to actually bring it back a touch and just be right on his bumper the whole time and just be ready for that little mistake and pounce then i mean they're all way too nice but if i was nick houston i'd be giving matt topham a little rub in the slow speed corners just to unsettle that rear even more and hopefully just kind of distract him and make yourself an easier pass uh the 42 hourly by the way that i mentioned earlier on started not poll is forward to the back of this group now it's also on its third warning for exceeding chad limit so richard williams stint really hasn't gone to plan has it we've also had a change for the lead in gt4 will burns has got past michael bagnero he did did it on the previous lap so century motorsports championship winning car is now the race leading car here at donington but they will have a maximum success penalty to serve because they would our most recent race in the wet conditions at alton park a month or so ago holsted looking to the inside there of topham couldn't quite do it katie milner looking menacing behind as well and this is now the problem for halstead he can't just focus on attack because if he goes for removing it doesn't work or if he gets delayed by tottenham's defensive driving katie milner is there to attack and in fact she looks on the inside as they go into the goddard's habit holster trying to find some grip on the outside he's not gonna work well he doesn't gain the place but he doesn't lose one either really difficult position to be in this for nick yeah i think he's feeling that and he he needs to be looking more to the inside he's obviously on the outside or top of him here and that's a long way around as he types the inside he obviously heard me quite well there just a little bit late that topper is doing a brilliant job at holding everyone up but is he actually holding himself up is he losing too much time looks like uh houston's looking in his mirror as milner's on his inside and milner gets that move done so again we need to see this from houston need to follow milner i think miller's got that a little bit more pace than house dead so he might be able to use her as the door opening tool on top well she's already got a run on top of him actually almost got alongside through starkey's there katie milner came out of geneta gt5 racing a number of years ago another driver that's really improved as the season's gone on and here she is now challenging a car that has won a couple of times already this year within gt4 and he's contending for the pro and title remember in the shape of that uh number 27 aston martin topham fence her off for now uh but there is a sense of inevitability about this katie mulder has rocketed the punt uh through this group of cars and is about to put the rjn car i think it's a real contentious challenge for a good result this afternoon holstered falling back into the clutches of john ferguson as well as they now begin to pair off a little bit in this four-way scrap with the chicane and gaps all staying fairly constant for the time being john ferguson's had a bit of an up and down season hasn't really this toyota's been in the wars a few times i think we are seeing a slightly more restrained drive maybe from john here you know early on in the season he might have just gone bowling straight into this battle and immediately tried to make progress he's sort of sitting there and finding his time isn't he yeah assume so i think that car for me the charge has probably been the quickest car over the season being bop wise the job speed works the team running the car i think the cars looked brilliant and i think they should be championship contenders next year if they can get two drivers just to play the party line and don't crash into people which normally is a detriment to championship points but i think that car does really well when you look at the size of it i always get over it doesn't look fast it looks too high it looks too wallowy it really generates a great lap time um so it's great for the championship to have another brand in as well sounds good as well that toyota when you hear it trackside it is one of the most distinctive sounds i think i've ever heard a gt car make it really is a great looking and great sounding car it's driven well by john and jamie as well katie milner is finding out first hand now just how hard it is to overtake matt topham so is this just the fact that the aston martin is quicker than the mclaren in certain key areas of the circuit do you think because holsted couldn't get through and now milner who's been making all of this progress is also stuck yeah exactly i think the aston bop looks like it's strength is potentially top speed so at the end of the straights and that's really really difficult to overtake when you're in the opposite end if you're fast in the corner it's brilliant but it's hard to overtake in the corner and a set up to the overtake at the end of the straights is the important thing and i think matt thompson has been really good with his body language he's shown where the car is going to be he then moves over and just blocks off that space so the car behind can't get a run and then falls into the clutches of the car behind that so it's it's hard for that challenging car to maintain the pressure it seems i think it's a brilliant job done by by matt topham as we see the gt3 uh mclaren fluent that potentially opens up a different kind of door toppings be looking and there's mirrors got bentley and another gt3 mclaren stuart proct there so a real amalgamation of cars and a very small piece of track it's uh pretty interesting uh yeah this is all for position as well in the gt3 ranks you've got mia floyd ahead of stuart proctor and then ian stinton in the talmud motorsport bentley uh great to have tolman back in the championship as i've said earlier on they're about to go lap down actually to race leader richard neary but uh tom and motorsport in a bentley that was one of the more surprising bits of views that i read in the last week or so yeah definitely tolman's a team i raced with for quite a few years and chris tolman team owner and dictator of that ship is a super great guy very professional caught me by surprise and it's great to see motorsport do that sometimes these partnerships that you can build up baptism of fire entering the last race of the year in a new car to the team and new to stinton as well jordan where his teammate has raced here for a few years but still that's a difficult thing to do and hopefully they can come back fully of a full season program would be that bit higher as soon as you get lap says he's about to by richard neary that's really day done any safety car really doesn't help you because you're then just stuck a lap behind so these just dig deep you can't legally defend against the leader unfortunately so he kind of has to let him go and the best thing to do is maybe follow richard near he's one of the fastest on track surprise of the lead but he can maybe see what the grip is and where it is and interesting on that grip statement you're really seeing some dry patches especially in the chicane where we're coming to the the dry bit as we see which is making very interesting three wide there's no real need everyone backs out of it and did a really good job considering that situation was one of the more interesting ways about overtaking lap traffic richard new did a really good job uh of doing that matt topham squeezed in the middle uh was in an unenvious position we actually see how much time he's lost to katie milder and it looks like nick halstead's past him and maybe the super is going to be able to follow uh the other gt3 or vloggy through as well but i feel sorry for about top of there nothing he's done wrong he's actually done a mega job avoiding accident and for his uh prize he just lost two places uh look how it's helped ian loggy as well because this lead gap between he and richard neary was six seconds it ain't anymore they come across the line uh just 2.7 apart that really delayed richard neary where as long he's not having quite the same trouble launches it up the inside of ian stinton as if it was for position but he knew how important it was to keep this momentum rolling keep on closing on the race leader he's put that whole pack of cars now between himself and morgan tilbury as well so really good lap that for me and loggie he drove well and uh it wasn't a particularly good lap for richard neary either as it stands then ian logan yama bourbon would be second in the points behind leo mcginsky and dennis lind if this car wins the race though number six they will be your 2021 champions they have this 10 seconds to serve in the pit lane which will be in about 10 minutes time probably and they still have to make a tire decision don't they i mean joe you just mentioned there are some of these dry patches appearing if they're going to go onto slick tires they want to do it during the mandatory pit stop is it ready for it though i think it is um i'm literally communicating uh with a few drivers now on their opinion on what i'm going to see as there's got to be slicks at the pit stop because it's going to be before the end of the race and if you can't get there in the mandarin pit stop you you're going to lose that lap time by 42 seconds it's stopping again for tyler so it's just too much of a loss you've got to take him and take the pain of it not being quite ready for slicks on the hour mark i think the teams will be looking even closer now at the gt4 bmw that we know started on slicks he's currently last by about 50 years but he's now getting in the realms of the fastest lap time his teammate just did a 47-4 on wetz and he just did a 51-4 so still four seconds but that was 12 seconds less than 40 minutes ago so we're now getting close those sticks will be coming out the oven they'll be hot as we see that slick car the little tip if you can see the tire wall of the car if it's got yellow on that's the pretty logo the wet doesn't have that so later in the race if you're struggling to know who's on who their slicks and that yellow tile shows up the wet is just all black the car looks good it doesn't look nervous now as you come into it it looks static as it was going down the straight be it the lack of grip and he's looking for that grip the darker parts of the tarmac are the where the drier parts are so he's going to be looking for that chicane you can really see a single line where the racing line is that's really drying up now so as the camera pans out you'll see that slightly darker line through the middle and that will be normal grip level we won't have much rubber down but it will be normal so all through the chicane i would say the slick is probably a second half quicker through that one bit you then come to the melbourne herpen where it's still very damp and you're losing all of that time back so it's really interesting it's certainly added quite a lot of spice to a to a meal that doesn't feel like it needs much more heat exactly there was already enough to worry about in this race wasn't that throwing in a bit of a tire strategy call that has to be made it's just even more complicated and of course the risk is that you go out there on those slicks and you are going to be struggling for a few laps the slightest mistake might just send you off the road and out of contention so chris salkel then squirms his way into a very greasy gate corner that last lap was a one minute 50.5 he's finding best part of a second the lap now isn't he of improvement from one lap to the next so chris salkell is definitely showing now that slicks may well be the way to go we will get gt3 pit stops from 62 minutes into the race gt4s though can pit from 58 minutes in so we are less than 10 minutes away essentially from seeing gt4 and then gt3s coming in to make their mandatory pit stops lead gap is 4.3 seconds between richard neary and ian locky who's now six seconds ahead of morgan tillbrook and this gt4 battle is in a completely different order than it was last time we saw it because now john ferguson has managed to get through the pack proving the points i made earlier on because he was patient the opportunity came to him and he's made the progress anyway yeah well it looks like all cars are undamaged considering that sort of topsy-turvy nature you mentioned it's like when i play monopoly of my family and my brother launches the board up and that's where they fall in i can't believe that we've pretty much had six cars change complete position as in beniana was was there he's dropped back we've had top of them drop back all the way to the back of this group but not one of them we've got a scratch on their car so kudos to everyone especially ferguson as we mentioned earlier in the season was pretty fighty he's got past houston which is important for that pro am element podium of gt4 and it's going to be interesting to see what happens next so i'm generally excited about the second half of the race there's always going to be like a separate race going on slick so we've got a replay here of the mustang trying a different line i think that would probably be track limits uh if the marshall has seen it there and that's the other aspect of when the track drives the track limits comes to the floor a lot more because it is very advantageous to run wide out these corners and use that extra bit of pace to carry through at the moment track limits really is more mistake lead rather than greed lead for pace yeah absolutely you don't want to be going on to those painted curbs in the wet in the dryer you can definitely find some valuable time john ferguson with a slightly wide line there through the melbourne hairpin but comes out of the corner cleanly and makes his way towards the end of another lap there is richard neary 2.9 seconds now the gap it came back down again on the previous lap i guess that might have been uh traffic induced i could see that they've uh recently put a lap on the mark samsung geneta so i reckon that might have something to do with it there is ian loggie then 2.9 seconds away from the race lead well to put it in other terms 2.9 seconds away from the championship that is the simple equation now for ram racing they have to win the race second isn't good enough unless 63 lose more ground but actually leo mcginty's got a decent margin over the next car which is kelvin fletcher we haven't mentioned kelvin all race but in conditions that i think it's fair to say don't favor the bentley he's kept out of trouble and looks like he's going to hand over to martin cloud but inside the top six yeah to have an uneventful stint in a bentley in the good and that's probably down to his little twinkle toes that we've seen on tv before so again kelvin's had a wicked year i think in his first year gt3 in a car that is difficult to get the window the bentley can win races i'm not saying the car isn't fit for purpose it's just difficult to keep in that window and i think that's where the driver then has to really earn his keep as we go to it you can see the size of that car to physically make that the same pace as a porsche behind it or a mclaren is difficult and i think that's why it is hard but kelvin's driving ability is not a question here and i think actually plowman as the track dries out and he takes over from fletcher could be a bit of a surprise here that car's got plenty of performance at the end of the straights which is what you need to overtake cars yeah we've seen bentley's win here at doddington in the past actually in mixed conditions as well so although that was through a good tiger oh what have we done around goes calvin fletcher and uh that phrase curse of the commentator rather springs to mind a good avoidance by nick jones but uh kelvin fletcher uh is now stationary in the middle of the straight oh what a shame i feel really awkward i actually didn't think it was a thing as a as a racing driver i thought it was just like we said as a cliche but that couldn't have been any quick was like 20 seconds from me praising him he was a bit lead for this samuel would have gone completely wrong there wasn't that i mean he did an amazing job to do 360. drop it down and off you go but uh it's a seven from me then oh no john ferguson leave now joe i think that's the safest thing to do john ferguson that looks like a breakdown in fairness not an accident but still really really unfortunate that for john ferguson just as he was putting in one of the better drives we've seen from him all year really so the toyota is out that does now officially take them out of contention for that gt4 pro am title as well well this race was in danger of becoming a little calmer over the last few minutes just before we came into the pit window it's exploded back into life now with a couple of uh really strange moments but ferguson unfortunately ain't gonna get that fairytale ending to the season that arguably deserves yeah exactly heartbreak for them just thinking of the wider picture of the race i think it's probably just about in a safe enough place to not need a safety car it's almost impossible to live snatch from there where it is so the race director's now got an interesting call to make any safety car around the pit window creates chaos because the leader pits the safeguard doesn't know who to pit some big winners big losers if you get laps by it so they really don't want a safety car over the pit window so i think they might try and leave that car there for me it's 51 in a safe enough place to leave there get some local yellows to warn all drivers about it but then they know about the hazard and for me it's just in a good enough place it's although it doesn't really look it when you see it how close it is to the track it's a hardcore to make and luckily i'm not clever enough to be a race director the marshals have just sent john back to his car so they're obviously discussing the best way to remove it side by side battle between teammates here meanwhile uh this is katie milner who really is in a feisty mood today she's on the inside of james kell that now becomes the outside for redgate corner they've got the gt3 championship leader leo machitsuki coming up to lap them this is the last thing he wants to see up ahead of him and in the end milner does go through a bit of the cooperation i think there from a teammate milner uh the quickest of those two machitsuki sideways it's all right no major need to panic manages to gather it all together but uh every time leo machitsuki comes up against another car be it for position or to put a lap on it it just gets that old heart rate going doesn't it he's managed to get through cleanly but that was definitely a bit of a twitch we're hearing by the way joe driveshaft failure for the total so it was indeed mechanical not my fault i'll say that then uh yeah i think leo's pushing on han and you see how dirty the windscreen is and all those little things are starting to go there the team will probably take a tear off the windscreen to clear that for dennis linston also interesting you can see on the dash there's quite a few boxes which is normal but one of them was red to me it looked like his real right tire pressure so potentially a little bit low there it might also go red if it's too high but the rear right is kind of the easier side around donington park so be interested to keep an eye on that if it carries on for linde when they change tyres there's obviously like road cars a tpms atta monitoring system in it which is live so you can do a little bit as a driver to manage those pressures but uh yeah we'll see how it goes i think richard near who see the top speeds let's see who's doing well there michael logo i guess nothing to lose kelvin fletcher like we alluded that bentley's great in the high speed and then richard neary probably unsurprising third place being the leader knowing what he's doing and it's relatively close isn't it between those top four 0.2 of a mile an hour then a bit of a gap to nick jones but when you imagine in the wet what these cars are doing moving around to be doing 124 miles an hour in the middle of a corner really gives you an illustration of how quick these cars are these days and again proves the point that bop is working because that's five different makes of car isn't it lamborghini bentley mercedes aston martin and porsche all carrying nearest damage the same speed through the corner right pit stops beginning for gt4 the pit window is open had it confirmed by bryn lucas that the green mclaren you just saw is having slicks fitted we imagine that's going to be the way to go for everybody but uh is that the right call will it rain again is it dry enough yet for slick so many decisions here to be made the number 40 car is in as well that's nick holstein handing over to jamie stanley so the gt4s can pit from a couple of minutes four minutes to be precise uh sooner than the gt3s can those that have success penalties in gt4 well it's a 20-second success penalty for our winners last time at alton park the 57 bmw a 15 second success penalty for carnival 2 so that is the car you can see just having its uh refueling done now and then 10 seconds success penalty for the academy mode support for the mustang it comes the 57 the mustang was in the background as well so all of those front runners are heading in now to serve pit stops we also joe have the silver cup element to factor into all of this all of the silver silver combo teams have an extra 26 seconds to serve so some of those pro-am cars that have faded in the first part of the race this brings them right back into contention yeah uh 100 and i think nick halstead's done the best job out of those pro am so he's giving it over to jamie stanley there he's going to take over on some new hot slicks and yeah it's hard for those silvers to gain that 26 seconds back and then they've got that extra bit of weight as well which really hurts them over the end of the stint we see the windscreen being cleared off jamie stanley that was a slick handover wasn't it from mechanics mechanic see the pit lane timer on the blue one there just freezes the car fires up so they still have around 30 seconds until they need to leave so that minimum pit stop window is so critical anytime that you're under the minimum pit stop time you have to come back in and be stationary for that so you second under you come in and stop and go for a second plus the time it takes to drive through the pit lane which is around 22 seconds as we see that top will come to the line he'll be on the radio three two one line and then nice and relaxed you can loosen the boats but you can't undo the belts so you just see him here on the top shoulder pull that up both hands on the wheel knows where it's going doesn't need to touch that turns in looking to kill the engine as quickly as possible pop the window net to his left door open downtown has been very courteous letting him out close the door make sure the belt's not in the way the refueling will start once the refueling is finished then you change tires and put a new driver in the car fastest gt4 car on track last lap by the way chris salkel on slick tyres so actually this transition from west to slicks could not have been timed more perfectly bang in the middle of the race right in the middle of the pit windows and this is when the track is ready for slicks it would seem we're getting those slicks up to temperature well that is going to be a real challenge out goes the number two mclaren the gt4 order will be shuffled significantly because of these pit stops we'll figure it all out in a few minutes time we are only though 45 seconds away from seeing the gt3 cars coming now there's always a bit of a hurry to get these gt3s in to get the pro drivers in as soon as possible with the fact that they now want to change over onto slick tyres that's going to be even more the case and of course some of these gt4 cars are still going to be in the pit lane when the gt3 is coming as well yeah just looking at the sector the last sector's 40 seconds and fletcher and howard cross that with about 39 seconds to go to the pit window open so they're at the melbourne heirloom now so the 11 bentley and the seven aston could be the quickest but that lap time delta if andrew howard can box this lap get johnny adam in i think he'll be six seven seconds quicker than an am on wets so one more prolap is almost worth the the pit stop penalty that some guys have got from the previous round so be interesting thing bit windows open now so howard could box let's see what the uh huge experience beach team amr do with them uh yes so back into the fray they all go there goes the bmw in at the top of the screen i think was that the aston martin so andrew howard then in to hand over to johnny adam we're getting the gt3 cars starting now to make their way down the pit lane howard uh has no success penalty to serve of course remember he had a big accident at alton park last time they had to actually use a different chassis uh that day for the races and uh it just really wasn't ever at the races to be honest so no success penalties brought over from alton park race leader richard neary is in so too he and logan they're all gonna start pouring in now aren't they now remember loggie has got this extra 10 seconds to serve when he came in the lead gap i think was about two to three seconds at the last time that i saw it went up to 5.6 as they came into the pit lane actually so that's interesting uh that will we think go up to about 14 or 15 seconds can yell the bourbon gain 14 to 15 seconds on sam nearly in 55 minutes jeff interesting i would say no is my first punch and we'll see when the lamborghini is staying out actually so that's a chance an interesting tactic they're obviously not willing to stack the cars would be my guess so balan was in front on track position so he gets the choice there are two pit baits but with them being so close they wouldn't be able to refuel them off one rig so there is a rule in the championship that can only have one rig per team find if you rank racing you've got one car one rig if you've got two cars one brick then you have to choose so it looks like farwell's rule is whoever is on front on track gets choice not championship so that would be an interesting call for mark lemma to make there so machis is going to have to do another lap that's at six or seven seconds this is slipping away from rachiski an alarming rate of knots the other interesting thing with loggie was he was 10 seconds ahead of tillbrook so that 10 second penalty is going to put yelmer berman and marcus cotton taking over the enduro mclaren very very close you're going to see some camaraderie in the pit lane i think i think ram will release this car a little bit early the pitley speed limit is 50 as a maximum you don't have to do 50. so if you want to lose a bit of time cruising down the pit lane that is possible so let's see where that enduro mclaren is it's just about where it was now on the pit lane it's going to easily clear balance leary has left the pit lane sam junior and we just see a cluster of cars all at once now so it looks like loggie's car now in the hands of yamaburman is slightly in front is he holding up those two cars behind him they definitely look like they would like to get past him they leave as one so yelmer berman you and hanky lat down with uh now marcus clutton that's going to be an interesting race the other thing i've alluded to the leader near he's in the mercedes loggie bourbon in the mercedes different teams for the same manufacturer we're going to see the interesting tactics across the manufacturer there i was going to pose this question to you as in now does kung leo chitsky so as you say waited just that one extra lap to hand over to dennis lind there was no success penalty here they were off the podium in the second race at alton park last time out so all being well this should be a relatively quick pit stop as long as they stick within the minimum pit stop time of 110 seconds but yeah i was going to pose this question to you about sam neary and yamaburman because sam very much sees a future with mercedes he's been uh quick to tell everyone this you know i've ever been as quick as yama berman and you know he's uh factory driver and this that and the other will he try to maybe do the right thing for his career and maybe not make life too difficult for elmer as he goes after a championship it's a fascinating prospect i don't know if they'd give up a race win to do it but it is literally the difference between the championship going to barwell or going to ram it really is and i i can see both arguments there one being it's not racing team orders we've seen it in formula one how unpopular it is but a championship even british gt national championship is the biggest national championship in the world a brand like mercedes spent millions and millions of pounds to win gt3 championships they will be having a very interesting conversation there will be mercedes representatives walking in between the garages breaking a deal so we've basically got a live hostage situation while going around at 150 miles an hour immediately by the way purple sectors coming in yelmer berman fastest man on the track on his out lap here so he is immediately waking up the starting point between samner and yell moberman 12.2 seconds 12.2 seconds is what yalma burma has to gain to then have a chance at overtaking sam and winning the championship he's got to get there first of course that uh how much life he takes out of the tires in doing that it's gonna be interesting to watch out goes dennis linden he's gonna be someway behind that group crucially though oh you can see yeah that was uh sandy mitchell wasn't it running wide in the background drivers maybe are just struggling in this first lap also on slicks it's still not fully dry is it definitely not and obviously sandy inherited a 15 second penalty for balance so that's why those two cars have swapped round but he was going painfully slow out that last corner so conditions obviously still not easy as we wait for the pros to wrench to their first lap times we saw the the ams getting out on the wets finishing in the one-minute 40s i'd expect us to be in the sort of 36s on the first flyer dropping to 32s probably within the next five minutes so let's see the difference we've lost that red box on the dash i was mentioned a bit with machisky we're on slick so we're gonna be going a lot quicker here you can trust the front end in use the curve apex doesn't want to use an exit yet this is his first lap he'll be exploring what it is by that i mean there's the curve holding water is that mud on the track right there 180 degrees of opposite lock while trying to get full power down i've now got two gt4 cars possibly one sorry and then a gt3 racing in front a quick adjustment on the belts by the looks of it breaking in the middle of the truck there you can see the car squirreling so he's looking for where the grip is it wasn't there in that instance but this is hard work there's an adjustment on the traction control that center knob there on the steering wheel that is not the driver it's going to look to v this corner off trail the braking so the weight stays on the front axle then hard on the power see the rev lights the blue light that comes off on the left side where traction control is active so basically you're asking too much power as we see phil keane going off getting onto the national track luckily but we saw mitchell going slowly we can see why that track is treacherous at the last corner younger bourbon two seconds faster than sam neary on his first sort of full flying lap after the pit stops but marcus clinton six tents quicker than him in third place they're all coming together these top three at the order then sam neary needs 10 seconds is now the margin over this man yale moberman in second place marcus clutton is 2.2 seconds further back in third dennis linda's fourth now that's really important as joe said they've inherited that fourth position from their teammates uh because sandy mitchell had to serve that extra time in the pit lane but fourth would still not be enough for 63 if number six gets the race lead they would have to be on the podium so lind is not likely to gain 35 seconds on marcus clutton this is out of lin's hands now really all he can do is maintain that fourth place and hope it's enough yeah i mean in a decade of gt racing i've had it in a handful of occasions where i've been in a similar situation to lynd you're helpless you cannot be 35 seconds better than another professional and you end up actually looking after the tire so you're not going to gain that and you're praying for a safety car so when a safety car does come your tires are that bit fresher because you've not pushed it for no reason then this might get the gap down to 25 that's cool well done it's still the same points as being 35 but if you can hang on and look after that tire and get the safety car then you've got a chance of having that fresh attire for me that's the only option he's got he's finishing fourth well she gt4 car wanted from him and this is going to be clutton is all over the back of him as we go to that shot and clutton is so aggressive in the most positive way ever his overtakes a hot knife and butter star i really like how he drives that car so you know those two cars at the start of the race that i said weren't in championship contention but could have a real bearing on this while berman is catching one with being caught by the other this is fascinating stuff and still nearly 50 minutes to go thurman in three laps has harmed the gap to sam near it's down to 6.6 it started at 12.2 then he was 10 seconds now 6.6 another two laps he'll be right with him yeah we're also seeing mitchell of the live timing here reals we see clutter getting that brilliant run it's gonna be hard round the outside he squeezes him young has gone indeed he's got this what a great move that was perfect being shown the outside he had nothing he could have done but put pressure on the elmwood to go in tight and not have the driest bit of the track and you really saw it marcus clones a man on a mission here i think leary is going to get caught by him it's going to be interested in what berman can do about leary the other interesting one boiling in the background is mitchell on lin two second gap and mitchell is setting purple sectors he is the fastest man on track just behind marcus clutton at the moment oh sorry replay here so what i'm talking about he goes in and then just closes the door and it pushes you up to the wetter part of the track and that's why it goes down we didn't outbreak himself he simply didn't have enough grip on the bitter track that clutter basically bullied him into really clever and you see the speed difference clones had a great x out of the chicane on the brakes not too late and you just hear it maybe lock up a little bit can't get it stopped and you can see how wet that track is on that rear view camera it really isn't nice but cotton's got to see you later right there so game on marcus clutton and enduro motorsport morgan tilbrook they've never won a race in the british gt championship sam and richard neary got their first win in the championship back in the summer here at donington park and they've got behind them a car that is trying to win a championship now there is the car that currently leads the championship blimey that was a close moment with the gt4 car the 63 car though of dennis lin is struggling he's being caught hand over fist here by sandy mitchell uh who on the previous lap was over a second quicker than him we're on board with the reigning champion now mathematically could still win the championship this year he's looking a bit less likely now they'd need some real misfortune to strike the number six and 63 cars but another position to be lost here for dennis is definitely a possibility it's a very incestuous sandwich this i mean that with phil keane in the middle here the wpi car has been teammates with balloon at barwell and also machiskey in previous years in another championship so there's a lot of strange into team politics phil left barwell on relatively good terms but it was his decision to leave to go to pastures new with aigo and wpi so phil keem will have he's got zero ego but he will have a point to prove here that he's the fastest lamborghini pro out of these three kids he is though laps behind these two should he not be getting out of sandy mitchell's way and not hurrying dennis lynn ahead of him do you not want a good race what's your problem no you're 100 right but until he's being shown a blue flag or we get a race director no on the timing screen that he needs to it's fair game and it helps that they aren't the lead cars but yeah he is laps down so he shouldn't be by definition but if he feels like he's faster than dennis lin then why can't he start to unlock himself it's a very awkward predicament there's no way around it uh and it's just one of those horrible situations you find yourself in you and hanky by the way has the fastest lap now one minute 30.623 seven seconds quicker than the race leader it was a really poor lap from sam neary last time around and there you can see the effect that's had it must have been traffic or a moment for the race leader because that lead gap is down to 1.8 seconds now between nearing clinton and are we seeing what i alluded to earlier about being a wet setup was that why his dad richard was the fastest guy on track in the wet and now the slicks are on the car potentially too soft seven seconds is too much but i think we're not seeing a positive stint here yet from salmon we've seen him being so quick this year it's got to be a bit of an external influence my hope for him is that maybe the tire pressures are low and they're coming up and they'll be better at the end of the stint while the others have fought we need to get on this quickly and they've started aggressively with their tyres but we've still got 45 minutes left there's going to be some big changes in pace for all of these guys it does look very soft doesn't it the the lead mercedes when he break for red gate just now that those really dipped a lot more than ian loggies did in the background i noticed so yeah i tend to agree with you there i think maybe the setup is not really great for these conditions the sun is actually trying to uh break through the clouds for the first time all day so it doesn't look like it's going to rain again this is on a plate at the moment isn't it for marcus blunt he's got one more overtake to execute and then he will be in the lead of the race under a second was the gap at the start of the lap as they head out onto the exhibition straight now another thing to factor into this championship equation is that scott mulvane just set the fastest lap of the race that in and of itself isn't particularly relevant what is relevant is he's only eight or nine seconds behind the dennis lin sandy mitchell pair and he's catching them on the last slot by nearly three seconds another car that could start taking points away from barwell yeah and again melvin's super aggressive like clutton in that regard his overtakes are punching he will not care about people's championships he's there just to win races and get up as high as possible that's his job so he won't really mind about robbing a few guys who are worrying about the championship we've seen the bentley of plan when they're struggling again with traction i was hoping once we've got slicks on it it would be better is he gonna get out of the way of clutter to allow that battle to continue he does really well there so it'd be interesting to see if we get the same sort of performance that other mercedes is a slightly different spec to the burman mercedes that's the older car that black one it doesn't have the new update front end aerodynamics so it'd be interesting to see if it's stronger than the new mercedes anywhere and where it's weaker but for me this is it's kind of if not when yes four tenths of the gap as they started that lap interesting the elmer berman having really switched the tyres on it seemed really quickly at the start of his stint he's now slower than these two the gap between first and third is back up to nearly four seconds now says go the wrong way this for yala burma really could do with getting past at least one of these two to try and uh keep the pressure on marwell for the championship as if they're not already under enough pressure being reeled in as they are by the team parker racing porsche down the exhibition straight go the top two cars though clutton having caught the mercedes though his dilemma now is how to get through because we do have a very distinct dry line he's quick through the chicane though and immediately sam neary pulls to the right to defense and marcus clinton to the outside remember what he did to elmer berman down here forced the mistake out of mercedes this time he tries to force the issue though goes to the outside of sam neary who stands his ground well to get past that mercedes though clutton is likely to have to go on to the wet part of the road and on slick tyres that's asking for trouble really sam was a little bit braver though as we see him run wide in that last corner it's gonna be hard for cluster to do anything about that though and i think we're gonna look at some gt4 traffic coming up in the next two laps i think that's gonna be interesting clutton has now started flashing his headlights he managed to resist the edge for two laps and now it's really itchy as a button as a driver it makes you feel like a hero when those lights are flashing when you're the one attacking right there this i tell you this is why i love the donald designer it's always such a tense race but actually we've got two teams here that are not worrying about points they're just putting on a show here as they fight for the race victory uh marcus cook really wants to get through made a bit of a mistake there though at the old hairpins just dropped back a bit from sam neary's mercedes uh sam is starting to warm to this as well i think now maybe just figuring out how the car feels he might not be 100 happy with the setup but he's got what he's got and he's going to try and extract the maximum that he can from it as in the bit lane looking on nervously as yama berman on the last lap joe was back quicker than them again so the gap now down to three seconds covering the top three yeah and i think birmingham is quicker than nearly so if nearly keeps holding cotton it's going to become a three-car battle it's just i think clutton is is going to get the move done and i think there is just got to then hang on the back of him looks like clinton had a little bit of a moment of himself and near he's doing really well he's just stopping on the apex hence clinton's just ran in the back of him just to let him know that i'd like to go a bit quicker here just so you're aware it's worth six grams of damage to both cars and i i think it's going to be interesting i think yelma then potentially some i actually think that might be sam's line it's a late apex that last corner at least a car width there but cluster's going to show his nose and if near he turns himself around it could be viewed as a racing instant rather than a malicious attack let's hope it doesn't come to that we're really enjoying the battle at the moment and so far it has been clean uh right then ian loggie is down in the pit lane with friend lucas britt i bet he's a nervous man well you did all you could out there didn't you and you put yourself in a really really strong position and now yelva is catching while the two ahead of having a bit of a fight yeah it's uh it's not over for sure that's uh that's one thing because uh elmer's now what two and a half seconds behind the front two cars are having a bit of a bit of a fight so i think we could see any one of four cars winning this race but obviously we've just got to keep keep our head down and keep uh keep pushing though and there's that for yelmer that's all you can do but when you look at the other cars around you obviously keep an eye on dennis too while he's out there in fourth yeah well um the championship sort of play for we've got to win it and uh um i know ideally the the the bardwell car has got to finish fourth for us but it's looking strong for everyone at the moment so it could uh it could go either way well yeah was just putting a lap pretty much half a second quicker than the guys around him as well so he is gaining gaining the whole time he's definitely going to be on it and then i think i think what's going to determine the race is going to be the um the traffic once we get into the traffic anything's going to happen there because that's where they overtake it's going to kind of want to go but while we're chatting we just watched the league just change there so we now see that marcus is now overtaking sam so the leads has changed there so now we have a sound in second marcus leading the way yeah and they'll be fighting back again so you want these two to carry on doing that i'm sure yeah absolutely uh the mclaren with marcus is really really quick he's uh he's fastened um but i think the bentley might come in it's on now it's uh it's starting to dry they've really struggled all weekend of the last two corners in the [Music] contact sorry break contact between the race leaders they're all together the top three are together in traffic gt3 and gt4 cars all as well marcus clutton's got the lead he can't escape though sam neary getting boxed in delayed younger burma is right with them a race win for bourbon gives him the championship he's got to attack and he's got to attack now whilst the race leaders are getting held up sam neary having a go here at marcus clutton they've got more that markers up the road nearly to the inside they're both trying to get the inside of the stellar motorsport audi of said and fielding which stays out of the way so too does the tolman bentley very touchy feely stuff here though to the outside goes near the bentley's not getting out of the way joe i can't watch me neither i'm glad here he was there could stop me having kittens he was so calm and relaxed and how great move by marcus on sam completely fair and then it all bunched up i thought marcus was going to get fired off now this is the interesting bit what's near he going to do is he going to fight berman or is he going to let him go i still think cotton's the fastest car on track the other one in the mix is you and hanky behind that bentley a lap down but super fast the pace of these leaders there's a lot of dynamics here still to play out and i think the important part is the next few laps is burning in front of niri yay or may they've got to win to get the championship and that is their only hope and i just feel if cluster gets another couple of laps of clear non gt4 effective laps that win is not possible yes a second could be enough though if linde loses more ground he's only three seconds ahead of melvin now but he does still have his teammate sandy mitchell as a bit of a rear gunner right now so that's the next battle we need to watch for even when this one ever calms down they have just separated uh fractionally now but yeah you're right second place as a bare minimum here uh for yalpa bourbon is what he needs to be angling for even if he decides he can't go after clutton sam neary is the position that might define the 2021 championship on board with berman out of the chicane pulls up alongside the number four mclaren that's now harry hayek at the wheel uh that car running fourth place within the silver element of gt4 gt4 meanwhile uh is being led by the number three mclaren of allen vellum by 2.3 seconds over matt cowley sport mustang in second angus bert's another 57 bmw quicker than the two ahead but about seven seconds off the lead in the place out of the hairpin then firm and wide on the grass i mean near he's not moved out of the way yet and he's had chances to do so if he was going to yeah and that gap is extending for clutton that was eight tenths quicker uh than near his last lap so like i said that that gap is going to be two or three seconds in a few laps potentially and that is their day done i think for anyone else winning it doesn't look particularly stressed again by the body language of the car we're not getting any flashing of the headlights but he's not that much quicker than there you look at it there the car's not particularly planted for him he's having quite big moments fourth fifth gear when the highest aero load is on it so just moving around at that sort of speed i can imagine it's a bit of a handful on the slow speed corners as we go on board you can just see a bit of rear rotation from the car so as it's going in we're going back to the lamborghini so we have dennis lind currently good enough for the championship phil keem quick but nowhere in it too many laps down and then we've got mitchell whose pace is kind of falling off a little bit and that's leo machiskey so the guy we were watching in that car that i was saying was a bit wild looks quite calm and i think the fingers were crossed i don't think it was a european gesture of uh discontent towards us so good luck for you leo uh yes and the danger here though is the porsche scott baldwin is the fastest man on the track fastest lap after the fastest lap he's sexy and just set another one a woman at 28.24 he's 1.6 seconds behind the third of these lamborghinis sadly mitchell they just see him in the background the blue and black porsche within a few more laps he's he's gonna be on the tail of mitchell but then he's got to clear two lamborghinis before he even gets anywhere near dennis lyndon that's the position that counts for the championship so uh i think certainly sandy mitchell ain't going to make it easy for scott baldwin and actually neither will phil keane really because he does still have ties with lamborghini ties with barwell he's not going to want to help out barbell's opponents is he so i think matt carr is really as good as a third barbell car in this particular situation yeah definitely i think lamborghini do a great job of managing all their drivers of expectations and they will be told to keep pushing and no white flags to anyone in that instance seeing some flashing i think from sandy down i think that was on the gt4 i don't think that's at phil keane at all but these cars are staying in a pretty stagnant position i think that might just be the way the lamborghini works it's a hugely aerodynamic car for gt3 so it suffers more of the wake from cars in front and that is another lamborghini it's like a double-edged sword melvin getting held up a little bit so we've got a replay neary locking up the front left losing the position to berman completely missed out on the timing screens and it's lost him a load of time for all you conspirators out there that was not on purpose that was not team orders for me that was a genuine mistake i don't know why he was so offline and i don't know if it's got an issue to lock up like that the abs should be looking at it we're seeing 77 as being told no more contact which i can kind of see what the race director wow that was wild i think that could actually i thought it was the front axle but the rear went first i think he just touched up her exit line and it would just be holding the water a little bit more you can see it's damp on that dotted white line i think that's what's caught him out there lucky and a good save but uh yeah to go back to that 77 comment the race director has basically said no more contacts which i do get peter daley's view on that it was all very rugby very fair it wasn't for position and i think more importantly clutton kind of go yeah sure no worries no more no more contact i'm in the lead who am i going to hit so i think he'll be fine with that the interesting one is track limit still all the leaders seem to be keeping a few in their pocket you've got three lives you want to use them up wisely you don't want to gain a tenth you want to commit to it and fully cheat and get half a second with one yes indeed right then uh dennis lynn what is he getting up to well uh the gap between he and sandy mitchell is back under a second scott malvin's dropped back now he's not had a great time in traffic over the last few laps so the porsche is not quite the threat that it was a few minutes ago you can just see it in the background there but uh dennis lind who's a teammate leo machitsuki is watching on anxiously i'm sure uh from the pit lane they're in a strong position now unless galba berman can catch and pass marcus clinton for the uh for the race leader right we've been there we've been talking politics at barwell motorsport some work with the boss shall we bring and see what he makes of it all well mark how are you coping with this one because it's it's going all over the place isn't it with marcus button just getting a last warning as well for driving standards yeah coping all right obviously there's not too much we can we can do at the moment really um i don't think there's much in the marcus cotton thing you know there was a tiny bit of contact but he wasn't like he pushed a pass but then i would say that wouldn't i because obviously i want him to win um so yeah we can't really do much we're too far back so we just have to say what plays out up front and that will decide the championship but you've got you've got scott behind dennis at the moment he's really pushing him hard no team orders is my understanding i think that's fairly settled down and the tires have all settled down i think dennis has got the pace he um you know he's not going to be under any threat from behind so it will just be what happens between berman and clark yeah we'll read into that we're readings that sandy might might be uh a gentleman should we say no no i mean you know look both cars are in there fighting but uh keaney's in between them anyway so that kind of uh but yeah i mean both guys are running good pace so we we haven't really got anything to fight between those two four so um but you know we need to still keep pushing you know might get a penalty and we need to if he gets to drive through of course we need to get ahead of him but like i say it's not much in our hands at the moment absolutely there's one while we've been talking to you leo's just come back into the garage so we'll probably get a word with him um leo you disappeared off a few minutes ago we saw you uh with your fingers crossed it really is a case of brynn and berry at the moment for you isn't it yeah well you know as i said we we do the job we can and uh you know if it's meant to be it's meant to be at the moment it's looking good um really voting uh really rooting for clutton to keep going so um it's fingers crossed [Music] uh yes well marcus clutton is still leading but by a reduced margin now 2.1 seconds back to alma burma it wasn't a brilliant lap back from marcus again you can assume traffic had something to do with that uh but that could still change albert berman ain't gonna give this up this is his championship on the line i just want to have a chat about mark lemme there and the barwell team joe because a lot is made of this supposed barwell donington park curse isn't it every time they come here to donald park for the decider they're always in contention it never quite um seems to uh it never quite seems to work out for does it how much do you think maybe mark is thinking about that is he kind of sat there in the garage thinking oh well okay what's going to go wrong this year because they're in a position right now half an hour to go provisionally they've got one hand on that championship trophy if we were anywhere other than donald park i think they'd be a bit more relaxed yeah definitely he sounded calm but i think he was basically waffling and just trying to fill it up we see darren turner here on board it that's the new bridge aston martin gt4 where they are currently that would be enough for the pro-am championship and you can see he's in a lovely bit of clear track there so darren obviously probably the most experienced driver on the track by quite a few multiples he's just going to bring that home 29 laps car looks in nice condition considering how wild and sideways that looked with matt topham on the wets coming out the hairpin uh unwind the lock straighten it up pull the gears up on the right hand side you can hear the rev of the v8s very low stress that engine on the brakes hard a couple of gears down possibly three depending on how grippy it is just the two again straightener up and off you go shift up on the blue up to fourth gear and another lap he's in a really nice bit of clear track he's actually got that space as we cut to two gt4s with a lot less clear track around him potentially a damage on the front of the rjm mclaren you can see the left-hand side the car is missing what we call an ltr cheek it's just a bit of cooling and i'd imagine it's from this tire stack on the left just now and that has definitely moved back of the race and i think people are just getting greedy nibbling it as we see the gt3 race leader comes past on its sister mclaren down the inside for marcus that's a couple of really nice gt4 overtakes probably a tenth or two lost whereas look at berman is now in the middle of it he's got to commit to the left that wet track on the left hand side that he's going to be on essentially losing him a bit more time and you and hanky is following him around like a bad smell at the moment uh he's still very tight round there it is it's getting tighter in gt3 look because the gap is coming down the last three laps in succession berman's been faster than marcus clinton and 1.3 seconds now is all that stand between yelmer bourbon and the race lead and potentially the championship victory because dennis lyndon in fourth place ain't likely to gain any more round in this race it's all about what the mercedes could do there goes the number three mclaren then alan verlot running uh in second place in that uh gt4 category so that me changed a few laps ago with the ford mustang getting itself ahead matt cowley putting in a really really strong performance and now looks like he might have the pace uh to get away from the uh the three car behind there then eight point two seconds ahead of gus burton in third now gus on the previous laps two and a half seconds quicker than both of these two admittedly they were being lapped by the gt3s at the time but if he keeps that rate of closure up then he could still get up there uh and get another race victory that 57 bmw was already won three times this year he think they'd give someone else a go but all they seem to be able to do that team is win and they're not out of contention even in this one yeah amazing that car the bmw's been truly competitive this year bmw released an evo kit so although the car looks predominantly the same as last year it's had a lot of tweaks and mainly aerodynamics required to stand for the century guys and has just made it a lot lot quicker and i think that's why it's won a gt4 championship probably easier than we've seen in the last decade to be honest and it's it's good to see when you get a package together both drivers the team and the car all working as one there's no reason why i shouldn't be able to make it look easy as we see sam near obviously working through the traffic that gap as you look down the pitch straight it's growing absolutely massively that one mistaken just a slight lack of pace this is a difficult stint for sound theory i have to say he's still got a good 20 seconds over lynn behind so there's really no stress for him in that regard drive through penalty meanwhile for car number nine that's under gordon coleman he's 25th place and multiple laps now and after that gamble to start on slicks did not work for century motorsport significant though because we've still got 26 minutes to go we've had our first track limits drive through it's uh certainly not impossible that others could fall foul of that as well so uh drivers have to be careful uh when it comes to how much of the track or the bits outside of the track limits that they're using again that could potentially have ramifications if it's a front runner that does it through mclean's goes will more there is uh the i'm sorry about cal excuse me there is alan valon behind and uh what lap times is burton doing yeah quicker again only by uh he was slower than the gt4 lead but quicker than the long by about par uh three tenths or so so inching up towards them but i think he needs a safety car or some further delay for those two if he is to uh challenge for that victory but still a little pony in the century at the end of the year that would be a remarkable way for them to uh to finish out the championship also by the way that fight for second place in the gt4 championship i need to do the maths because i actually think there is a chance here that new bridge as well as wrapping up the pro am element of gt4 today they could still steal second place in the overall points as well because the number two mclaren and the number nine bmw have both had really poor races so far yeah and that'd be a great sort of run out season for for that new team with new drivers in that regard and yeah we're seeing a lot of alan valenti uh the quick young german there that that damage actually quite restrictive to his pace that you can see he's lost the body weapon it's also where the dive plane sits it's a little carbon flick that you'll see on this fox car those little black flicks really pin the nose of the car down obviously nowhere near as strong as a rear wing but really then turn the wind around the car and make quite a few other components go in so jamie stanley again got some good clear space here and his pace has been strong now they've got that car firing pro-am leader of the race he's six seconds ahead of turner you can see just in the background their pace has been pretty similar up to this point we've been attempting to sort of be interested to see if that changes at all but that'd be a great story after the struggle wasn't qualifying yesterday for uh for stanley and houston there you can see four points in it their only hope really is that that turner gets caught but his nearest pro-am rival is a good ten seconds behind in the form of bradley ellis and i can't see that happening in the last 23 minutes yeah looking good for them as far as the pro-am title is concerned as things stand by the way i reckon that turner and topham would be four points shy of second place in the gt4 championship as well so they need to make a bit more progress um even if for example the number two car was losing of the place that wouldn't quite be enough so turner uh needs to get on with this here then he is currently as he comes out of the old head been six and a half seconds behind jamie stanley and of course they're both pro drivers they would be fighting for that lead in the uh category as well but if uh this car starts making ground up in the final part of the race they could still do which considering they didn't even race at season opener at rand's hatch they also had a non-finish here at donington although a lot of gt forecasts didn't finish that uh first race of the year at donington in the summer but uh yeah considering therefore there are two races this year this car hasn't scored points in to be considering second place in the championship that is a really really impressive run really is and uh i'm absolutely glued to the timing screens obviously the live pictures are super dramatic but the timing screen really gives you the one-dimensional view of pace as we see a positive move from uh lin there i have to say i think bourbon is finding a little bit of pace the uh the lifetime of is available online tsl timing or navigating via the british gt website and you get three sectors of laps obviously the lap time split between them you get an instinct of where the car is strong and for me yelmer bowman is coming alive in sector one so the first part the lap that car is taking three or four tenths out of cotton each lap clapton then finds the same in sector two and then three is even so we're starting seeing ebb and flow when you consider as only 1.9 seconds between them those few tents are going to start to play out i i've got a feeling bowman's getting stronger as this race goes on and of course all it takes is uh and as you say that goes over two seconds for the first time but all it takes is about marker to arrive at the wrong point going through the chicane for example or through the crane of curves you could lose two or three seconds sometimes from a group of back markers that don't cooperate so certainly a 2.1 second gap which is what clutton enjoys at the moment he would rather it was a bit more comfortable than that wouldn't they uh they're 10 seconds by the way now ahead of sam neary in third position his car's progress though continues scott malvin the gap went out he had a few poor laps in traffic but he's now only one and a half seconds behind sandy mitchell made that 1.2 seconds now that would be for fifth position overall he clears mitchell quickly he could still get up there and take the position away from dennis lin but dennis is actually two and a half seconds ahead of his teammates so then it's getting quicker too yeah and i think the traffic we alluded to is definitely going to be on the case i think the 77 car cluttering the leader has got five cars to clear in the next two laps looking at the track map and that has got such big ramifications so columbia like a roundabout and the old video in front doesn't pull out and then you lose a bit of time the next set of traffic lights are going to red rather than still being green so you just start to snowball time loss and then you get stressed about it you make wrong decisions and i'm not saying marcus is that sort of driver but the pressure of trying to get their first british gt win to end the year on a high like we said their first race of the year ended on the green flag lamp in the barrier so to finish on a win would be huge over the winter you can find more sponsors you can get some more money and it is all positive so that two second gap is going to feel my new once they catch those gt4 cars ahead of them yeah they didn't finish either of the first two races of the year enduro motorsport they had that crash at brown's hatch and then marcus actually tangled with someone i think it might well have been johnny adam at silverstone uh went for a move that he said himself was just too aggressive shouldn't have done it damaged the car and unfortunately ruined what was looking like being a promising race there at the silverstone 500 they then came back and scored some decent points here at donington park but missed a couple of rounds in the middle of the year so it's been a really inconsistent season for them they would love i know to end the season on a high there is mike simpson meanwhile cws racing this is a a team and a livery that will be very familiar to anyone really that's watched any uh uk motorsport over the last few years but uh great to have uh this car here mike simpson sharing the 78 of course with colin white and colin a real character a real racing enthusiast isn't it and it's so nice to have a brand new team on the grid and uh and drivers that have such genuine passion for racing definitely you know the brand like geneta to to people new to gt racing might sound a bit italian but it's actually based just outside leeds in yorkshire and lawrence thompson the owner has done a phenomenal job at creating a brand that can race at this level very very competitively colin white has been around for more years and i can count to which is awesome to have that sort of support and mike simpson obviously the brother of the more famous bart simpson is doing a good job there as well and he really develops those cars uh massively you can see how much they move around and it's quite different to the other cars ginetta and i don't mean that in a snobbery way it is so much lighter less power you really have to hustle it it's almost kind of the epitome of what the british do in motorsport we make it lighter and more agile rather than the big powerful cars and you really do have to hustle it to uh to get a laptop and i was fortunate enough to race one earlier in my career and i would probably say it was what gave me the opportunity to become a professional driver so fond warm memories of that little car that we've got on the screen uh yeah absolutely and uh two of them on the grid here at doddington park first time i've had two genetics on the grid uh for a couple of seasons and these new g56s uh proven to be fairly popular actually i know there are a lot of teams and drivers looking at potentially getting their hands on one and coming and contesting british gt so that would be uh fantastic to see if the other geneter is the next car behind so uh laurence thomas will be sending out his official photographer to get a bit of a photo of that i think as they come around the circuit together the tolman bentley which we mentioned earlier on of course is a new entry to the championship jordan wicks who first came across actually racing bentley's in another championship a number of years ago and a really really uh exciting driver of course race for two c's motorsport to the championship last year as well that season didn't quite go to plan it must be said but uh now that the conditions are dry the bentley started to look a little bit more drivable isn't it yeah definitely it generates its lap time in like the geneto quite a different way it's the complete extreme to the geneta it's big and it's powerful so you really need some grip to get that power down onto terra firma to propel you forward and you'll see it in these slower speed corners really have to pitch so as the car rolls around that's where it's trying to get its weight over each corner to get the power and you can see it almost lurching side to side because that tiny lamborghini comparison there's a lot more squat and it's a lot easier to be precise with but i really hope tommy get that car for a full season the expertise tom would have uh there and the resource bet they have i think that car could become a hugely competitive weapon in the british championship uh yeah absolutely and it's a real fan favorite car that as well has a big following you can see why it's a very imposing car when you see it up against the lamborghini here which is half the size it seems certainly height wise there's a difference between these two cars uh the top speeds at uh the dunlop part of the circuit that's down the back straight 144 miles now four guess what the bentley it's never really a surprise to see the continentals at the top of the speed traps easily there's actually the uh paddock motorsport one though for martin plan with car 11 who was a bit quicker than sandy mitchell's lamborghini and then the 84 bentley are also pretty rapid as well so uh yes the bentleys always do do well when they get uh a long flat out section and that's proven to be the case here at tommington too the third of these new entries joe is uh century motorsports aston martin i have to stop myself saying bmw they've got the two beams they've ran all year but uh century with the aston martin as well and uh making its first appearance of the uh season this weekend we know the aston gt4 is a competitive car and century motorsport not content with making that bmw a pretty unstoppable force now bringing aston martin into the frey as well yeah it's really good i think david holloway and bradley have had a really good strong year in another championship and wants to sample british gt they see it as a step up from what they've been doing bradley obviously hugely fast former british gt3 champion in a dodge viper uh and he's just been passed by this battle which is really intensifying molven on mitchell and it's going to be interesting to see how aggressive malvin is he's the kind of driver who catches you on the back foot and by that i mean he will just overtake before he's had a chance to really sort of size you up and that makes it hard to defend against because you don't really know where the attack is going to come from malvin we've been reading them in lap by lap you know what i think i'm the best at x corner or maybe wide if sandy happens here so he'll be getting there he's still maybe half a second too far away to have even a lunge but i think that porsche is probably going to be strong coming into the last section with a big traction zones considering where they've got the engine in that sort of old school vw detail style thing [Music] very nice looking and sounding car is as well i have to say it's nice to see team parker sort of getting on top of it now as well because they did struggle a bit at the start of the year of course moving over from bentley to the porsche but to scotland nick they've been getting quicker and they were quick at donington park earlier on this year as well they qualified up on the second row of the green so we know the car has potential this is the part of the circuit joe was saying it should be strong in with these tight hair bins so a good exit from the next one for example and of course could give scott a chance to attack into red gate but actually hampered a bit there by andrew gordon coleman's bmw couldn't quite take the line he wanted on the exit of the corner and so i think sandy mitchell is probably out of reach for the time being yeah that gap up to a number of car lengths now as they come through to complete the 62nd lap of the race we're into the final a quarter of an hour i don't really know where this race has gone 2.3 seconds the gap between clutton and berman that's fairly static now san leary is still third and dennis lind in fourth place is 14 minutes away from breaking the barwell curse here at dodington park there's a lot that can still play out in this last nearly quarter of an hour but at what point do you think dennis is going to start thinking about this championship realizing that actually it might just happen i think it's going to be really really close to him believing already he's in a nice position track wise it's nice when he going for a championship not having to worry about overtaking or being overtaken it's kind of out of his control he just needs to circulate at a good pace he's only half a second off the leaders he's 17 seconds behind samuel's who's he's still edging away but he's not gonna get close he's just got to make no mistakes he can literally stroke at home to be a bit softer on the brake not get as much energy in maybe he can get rid of a few downshifts sometimes corners are in between gears like might be second it might be a tenth quicker but if you leave it in third and lose a downshift it's also losing up shift gearbox appreciates it more and then the whole scheme of things you don't need the lap time we see mulvane right on the back here he's had a bit of help with gt4 traffic this lap got a good exhibit you know what i think the talk of the lamborghini is kind of negating the physical placement of where the porsche engine is it's going to be interesting for these last few laps if scott can do anything scott's teammate nick jones super lovely guy he'll be on the radio i'm sure to scott saying give it all don't worry about a front buckle we can repair that over the winter if you think you can get the place go for it uh yeah well i definitely think that he thinks he can get the place it's just a matter of making it happen and i do think maybe traffic could be his best friend here they're gonna catch the fox motorsport mclaren now as they drop down through the crater curves oh off has gone the number 78 uh janetta i'm afraid of mike simpson uh juggling because that's another car we were just giving a bit of look to a few laps ago off though it has gone but now the fox mclaren i thought was going to delay sandy mitchell there through the cranes but actually it seems to be the porsche of scott malvin that loses a bit more time simpson dragging himself back onto the road a strange place to go off in a way although surprisingly easy i've noticed just drift a bit too wide out of starkey's get on the wet part of the track or get a wheel on the grass and from there there's very little saving it yeah not for a drive of the quality of mike sims and that is most likely to have been a bit of contact being pushed out wide by gt3 or even potentially a bit of a suspension failure all looks square to me when i can see it but it's definitely not a corner where mike simpson's going to go off so i hope actually the car is able to drive and just get out of the way and it's not got an issue because if it's stuck there then that's potentially a safety car we're looking at a very very interesting last couple of laps if the safety car were to come out yeah ram racing uh we'll be hoping that the car stays there but we are hearing that it's uh it has rejoined so no need for a safety car then for the time being so uh the barbell team can breathe a sigh of relief in that respect dennis lin by the way only 15.8 seconds behind some near he's actually quietly putting in a really good stint here dennis he's seven seconds clear of this battle that we're seeing now between sandy mitchell and scott mulva remember the staff dusted mitchell was right on the tail of his teammates and yeah dennis taking nearly a second a lap out of sam neary ahead of him so joe he did suggest that maybe he could look after his tyres for the latter part of the stint and that car now he's one of the quicker cars on track yep and still lacking that little bit of pace which would kind of say to me he isn't on the ragged edge he doesn't need to so he's probably still just bringing it home and i think from looking at the sister car here of mitchell the car looks well balanced so i think malware have done a great job of having a car that was good in the hands of adam ballen especially in the wet and the dry that is no mean feat so we're looking at dennis here i think he'll be using a lot of curb on the left you need to for lap time but he'll be careful on the right for track limits got an easy 30 40 centimeters of space staying legal so he's doing a good job there and then in the hairpins it's all about just getting it nice and tight you can use the apex curve to rotate straighten the wheel and off you go you can hear the traction troll working hard on the lamborghini then the proctor mclaren behind also working leo looking rather dangerous in that long trench coat in a dark alley but that guy is potentially less than 10 minutes away from being a british gt champion uh he is it all hinges on what yelmer berman can do here in the final 10 minutes then because he's now only 1.7 seconds behind marcus clinton again as it stands linde could actually lose another couple of positions and still be champion so he could be overtaken by both sandy mitchell and scotland and it wouldn't make a difference unless berman gets the lead away from clutton and that one certainly could still happen because that gap is still close enough that one false move in traffic will allow this car the pink ram racing car to close right into within striking range he was a tenth slower than cutting in the first sector two tenths faster in the middle sector use all the curb use all the track limits take every risk now there is a championship on the line here uh yalma berman is uh is throwing everything that he can on this they may not win the overall championship but they do at least have the prospect of winning in pro and in fact as things stand uh it looks as though ram racing are gonna lose the outright championship but win the pro-am title by one and a half points doesn't get a lot tighter than that i don't really think that's on the mind of the album he's not going to drive conservatively is he joe for the sake of winning pro am when there's still a chance maybe at the overall championship yeah the overall is a big shiny one but it's like comparing staying at the ritz the premier in the pro am one is literally the trophy that you're going to use as a paperweight the overall one is the one that you'll tell the grandkids about gaps down to 1.6 is still falling the one thing that surprised me the most about the 77 mclaren of clutton and the six bourbon mercedes is they haven't had any track limit warnings so i'm saying about saving them but boys you've got four laps left you need to be using them and i would say they should use them at turn 10 the right of the chicane everywhere else is msa track limit rule so you cannot have a wheel over the curb apart from turn 10 we're playing to fia rules which means you can have one wheel on the track and that's legal i appreciate that's not very obvious or logical but that's the rules we're playing with so as they come down the back straight here the left-hander they can get close to the tire stack which is kind of protecting the truck limits here but then once i get through the left just open up the steering and cut it straight across and i still think he's legal i think he could get closer to the gravel and easily be gaining two or three tenths on this run down to the melbourne hairpin you can see clutter getting held up by two gt4 cars one mclaren he's down the inside cleared that one without too much bother he's got one more i think birdman's going to get one into the last one and one on the pitch straight potentially so it is getting racy i wouldn't want to call it yeah i think cotton's just got enough pace in the bag to be able to react to anything berman's throwing at him clinton of course he's also driving with this pressure of looking for his and the team's first win in the championship so yes he's going to make life very very difficult for elmer berman should yelmer get within striking range but maybe just fracturally increases the chance that he might make a mistake he might be a bit more conservative in traffic drop a bit more time because the last thing marcus wants to do is make a silly mistake in the final 10 minutes that loses them the race wins so uh yelmer in a way has got nothing to lose here he can throw absolutely everything at this and just hope to maybe force that mistake out of club he was another tenth faster that time one and a half seconds is the gap but he needs more than a tenth a lap to get there in time we've got six and three quarter minutes still remaining in the race as by the way dennis lynch sets the fastest lap of the race 128.236 so that little bit of pace he was missing he's found yeah and that's impressive when the tire goes on like this he's done 55 minutes of driving it loses performance the fuel comes off so obviously he'll be about 60 kilos lighter than when he started his stint but normally the fuel isn't as powerful as the tire grip so he's done a really good job of looking after that car i think and it's interesting to see that if he had needed it was there enough pace there to take it to anybody on the grid i think pace wise we're looking on the timing screens i think clutton and berman are going to get four possibly five gt4 cars before the end of the race like we're saying you can easily drop one two seconds on each one of those if you catch them wrong and with the gap only being one and a half seconds that is a definite possibility to really throw the mix up in the air yes absolutely so down into the melbourne air queen heaven comes dennis linds 7.8 seconds his margin over sandy mitchell oh center fielding slow through the crane of curves the stellar car broke down here in the summer and i'm afraid it's gone again he's on the grass which is wet don't crash it now that really would be unfortunate the car's clearly got a mechanical problem and then on the wet grass center fielding almost losing control what a shame they weren't on for a race win or anything like that they were running uh at the start of that lap in fifth place within gt4 but having started on pole they showed what the car is capable of a real shame that it couldn't hang on for another five minutes yeah it actually looked like it almost had a full electrical shutdown because it was obviously slowing and then suddenly it looked like the rear axle lock there's no clutch pedal in the audi gt4 so i wonder if the car just lost all power and actually just locks in gear and that's why it looks quite dramatic as cena was sliding off five minutes remaining i think we can gamble no safety car would be my choice if race directors listening seven should be able to get out of that car and get behind the barrier relatively safely there looks like probably cotton's had the better luck with the traffic this lap bradley ellis then getting that bmw really squeezing that look unnecessarily close on both parties there but to me that gap has grown from the 1.7 seconds last time around uh yeah i'd say so and now bourbon really is starting to run into some desperation he's running out of time here four and a half minutes left in the donington decider here the final round of the intelligent money british gt championship and yelmer bourbon has to overhaul a two-second deficit to marcus clinton and then overtake him in the remaining four and a quarter minutes in order to claim the championship for himself ian loggie and the ram racing crew there is the ginetta ahead that he's gonna have to pass of course if they catch a bat marker through the crater curves at the moment they're not even allowed to overtake them there will be yellow flags out for that audi just another example of how you can gain or lose time through things that are completely out of your control it doesn't happen on that occasion as he goes past the ginetta you can see clutton going to be inside of the uh i think that's the darren turner aston martin in the distance and that with maybe just one more car to be lapped for the race leaders should be pretty much it for traffic so quite an important moment that the club yeah really was cotton dealt with all that traffic well the traffic gods were super kind to him as well i don't think there was one that really held him up by more than a couple of tents as you you said the last one will be jamie stanley and the fox guy but jamie's super experienced as we see the battle intensifying there gt4 is again spicing it up mulvane doesn't look like he's got much he can do about sandy mitchell but uh yeah just saying about jamie stanley in the fox gt4 mclaren he's in his own sort of gap so he can almost afford to lift off and let both clutter and then berman go through there without sort of costing anyone too much time you see a slogan mclaren that's jordan collard looks like straight he's stopped it in an interesting place looks like he was quite quick to stop and turn the car off hoping to power cycle the car re-fire it and get out of the way again that's an awful place to be it's actually a very blind crest if you see the cars coming up to recording you lose sight of that plus obviously they can't see the car so moving all over the back they've got a bit debris in the uh the radiator it looks like it won't be too bad i think it's flown off already in fact so that's absolutely fine but we're getting to this later stage of the race it'd be interesting to see uh what happens up there at compass with that stop car uh yeah absolutely let's hope we don't have to have a premature ending to the race but uh if it stays there then i think we might have no choice it's definitely in a dangerous position isn't it out of the hair been there to come with the lamborghini in the porsche we're trying to work out what that means for this second place battle in the gt4 championship because it looks like now the number two car isn't going to score a single point does it so how are turner and topham getting on they're running uh in sixth place at the moment that would score them 12 championship points that's not enough so uh despite breaking down there the number two car should still come home as runners up in the gt4 championship but uh yeah not quite the way they would want to have uh to have done that there is darren turner coming through the chicane then bouncing his way through he's picked up some rubbish in the uh in the grill as well but that won't be concerning the uh aston martin veteran as he drops down into the melbourne heritage 7.2 seconds behind jamie stanley as well so jamie has managed that gap pretty well for the win in the gt4 pro am yeah i think veteran's a little bit rude do you see the color of his hair he's dyed it so much he wouldn't have to guess his age anymore darren so he's hiding those years i think the uh the wrinkles might show it the lead battle down to a second now so similar sort of gap here we've got a red flag unfortunately i uh fully fully sympathize with what the race directors have had to do there i think uh one person i'd be particularly happy to see that red it might be baciski i think that is a a well deserved congratulations you can see the relief on his face that is his son by the way and uh adam balon his teammate in the sister car super happy race directors had to make a hard decision i don't think there was another one that could have been made the cars will line up on the grid it's probably a little bit late to come into the pit lane um so be interesting to see where they're told to go it's all about formality this isn't too much of a stress to be honest well there we go then a little bit earlier than we expected but adam balon leo machitsuki and barwell motorsport are provisionally your 2021 intelligent money british gt champions and enduro motorsport have their first ever race victory in the british gt championship as well marcus clutton hanging on the albert berman was closer to him that he'd been i think at any point during that stint the gap had come down to one second at the moment the red flag came out so it could have all been oh so different for both enduro and for barbell ultimately but the red flag a timely one for those two teams in juror get the race win and barwell are your 2021 british gt champions and the celebrations i think will last for quite some time and this will just be that extra bit special because of where we are because of the history they have with this race here at doddington park finally that curse appears to have been broken and dennis at dennis and leo machitsuki are going to be so so pleased with the way that the season has gone the way the season's rounded out and worthy champions you can't really argue with it they have the championship lead to defend coming here to donington park and dennis and leo have just managed to do it yep definitely and uh obviously we haven't seen that rgn car stop there but there was no point in putting a safety car out with a minute remaining as much as it pains me i don't think we actually missed out on any overtakes i think berman had the pace but probably needed another 10-15 minutes to do anything about it uh and then obviously these guys were pretty spaced out by that point but nice bit of formation flying i think sandy will have a little bit of resentment to dennis there in terms of losing his championship from last year to him but what a great job by barwell to keep it in the family as such and uh yeah i think it's uh an international flavor danish russian driver and an italian car in a british championship is pretty cool yeah absolutely it is nice that we've got this international flair to the championship these days uh right then let's head down to where the celebrations are bryn he's down there with our champion i am in diode leo that was uh that was probably the hardest 25 minutes i've ever had to watch somebody watch the tv stream for uh yeah i was certainly aged probably another 10 years in the last 25 minutes um the last lap well i just want to say thank you to clarton amazing drive mate you deserve this win thank you so much but for yourself i mean yourself and dennis dennis had his work cut out really he had to stay consistent sandy was fighting off yeah i just haven't actually deserved to interrupt to say he did get the fastest lap so this year he's had faster slap at every single circuit that we visited race lap listen we're going to talk to you probably on the podium but well done thank you cheers guys well uh we'll speak to them again very shortly on the podium but uh burnouts for dennis lind as he celebrates the championship well this is nice it was a slightly anticlimactic end to the race but we're definitely getting uh a worthy celebration here from tennis lind who smokes his way right the way up the hill uh he'll be into the pit lane very soon there's a little spectator area just down there which was we couldn't quite see from that camera angle but i'm sure there are lots of people up against the fencing down there cheering him on uh and he is a bit of a showman isn't he dennis a very exciting driver to watch you know and hasn't been racing in this championship for an awfully long time uh immediately really made his mark though didn't he and uh i think he will be a popular champion i think barwell will be popular champions dennis and leo pretty well liked as well by the fans and uh yeah as i said they they really were the team to be throughout that middle part of the year and what's impressed me about barwell this year is that they've improved a lot of the circuits where traditionally they've struggled silverstone they were quick donington they were quick spa they were quick it is a mclaren though that wins the race morgan tilbrook and marcus clutton getting their first ever win in the championship for enduro motorsport with ian loggie and yalma berman 1.9 seconds away from the championship and the race victory but in the end second place not quite enough they will though we think wrap up the pro and elements of the championship simon richard neary having led the entire first half of the race end up third by the chequered flag with leo machitsu and dennis lyndon fourth place enough for the championship for barwell their teammates sandy mitchell and adam balon right behind in fifth position nick jones and scott mulvane never did get the chance to get ahead of the number one car they finished the race in sixth ahead of you and hanky and mia flew it mia had a spin in herston but actually pretty solid effort from there to beat out the likes of johnny adam and andrew howard in eighth the proctors in ninth and martin clown and calvin fletcher after that spin uh before coming through a copper's corner for kelvin rounding out the top ten it's another bentley next 11th place for the tolman car ahead of eye going keem sadly out of contention for the title from the first lap really when they had that spirit and then in gt4 it's the academy motorsport ford mustang that takes the victory from the number three team rocket rj and mclaren in second and century motorsports championship winning number 57 car rounds out the season with another podium finish they've only missed the podium twice all year that car nick holster and jamie stanley four the head of darren turner and matt topham they were the top two pro am gt4 teams the pro am race win goes to fox motorsport the championship though goes the way of new bridges aston martin with bradley alice and david holloway's aston martin for century motorsport next in line then it was katie milner after a really impressive stint she and harry hayek are next then ashley marshall and jack brown ahead of charlie robertson and mark sansom then the car that brought about the uh premature end to the race james kellen jordan collards mclaren ahead of the white and simpson geneta the audi which stopped in the latter stages the bmw which was multiple laps down after starting on slicks and the toyota unfortunately uh retiring with a mechanical issue in the early part of the race so that is the race result then here for the donington decider uh but we are about to i think catch up with our race winners which we mustn't forget in all of this marcus clutton uh is down there with brim well gents it might be slightly overshadowed but how about that a gt3 race win for you both i mean that's the way to do it right yeah without a doubt we've had a little it's been a long season for us and we've had our ups and downs you know if you do we didn't even make the first lap at brown's arch so unfortunately we all make mistakes and we're learning it's a learning year and you know we've stuck at it and finally got a reward we've had a couple of podiums took off as a you know a bit you've had a spin and a bit of an incident in the pits and you know we stayed strong and kept kept plugging away and today is the reward for that it's amazing now i'd like to say who had the hardest job but morgan let's say you started off in a very very tricky uh conditions on track and also was tricky the race going on around you for the championship you must have been aware of that too yeah it was you know i was conscious of that but you know it's our own race we you know we turned up to win um i'm unbelievably pleased mark has done a fantastic job all year you know he's not just not just a driver he runs the team so you know he's he's got a full-time gig and he does an amazing job and the team the team's done a great job too and some of them in indianapolis at the moment unfortunately i'm here to share the win but yeah i'm over the moon yeah it's just amazing isn't it you know you wait for a podium and you get a win so well done both of you congratulations cheers thank you very much yeah but a fantastic end to the season for a team that have always had the potential to do well and to you know uh fight for race wins and you know if they come back next year with this sort of form maybe even a championship yeah definitely they've done really really well and uh we alluded that later in indianapolis we've got that eight-hour race later to watch it would be great and uh yeah hugely congratulations to enduro and i actually think they won because they've got my engineer so rob cortinage engineering that car uh also engineers me so congratulations to them and uh i think their championship title sort of rival hunters for next year yeah fingers crossed for them we'll watch with interest to see what they get up to next year in gt4 it's a second win in recent succession though for academy motorsport yeah gt4 winners and um well if you look at the uh your badge there it's coming off because you race so fast that's right yeah that's correct yeah what's it feel like for you guys then getting the top step today mega i mean such a good end to the season will did a great job in this then brought the car in b3 and because the pit stops came out in p2 and then for me it wasn't too difficult because we did such a good job in academy motorsports everything they've been doing a great job all season and yeah it's just a great way to end it yeah brilliant end of the season um matt's giving me all the credit there but his overtake to get p1 was was pretty special so um yeah i'm happy good team good team work together and it's nice to have that relationship for you too as well yeah definitely yeah i mean me and we'll get on really well um everyone in the team gets on really well and i think that's why the results come in the end yeah absolutely well deserved but it was tricky conditions out there i mean you had your work cut out to begin with uh with the greasy circuit we've been talking about this from the very very beginning but it was such a tricky uh way to read this race to begin with yeah very much so we took a bit of a gamble as well we put uh we put a dry set up on the car and put wet tires on anticipating that the track would dry out towards the end um and it did it's paid dividend really team's done a great job to call that and uh yeah we just drive the things at the end of the day exactly well you drive it pretty well well done both thank you yeah uh i'd echo uh the thoughts of brittle because they did drive it pretty well and a car that as we've said a few times is surprisingly good in the wet actually i've got that win of snet in the wet and this one definitely a ring affected race but really good solid stints there uh from both of those too so uh we are now going to have a word with another pair of uh champions the pro am champions in gt4 darren turner and matt topham down there with bryn lucas there was a danger you two that you might finish second in gt4 but you've got the pro-am title and it was a bit it's been a decent season for you both really uh yeah i mean uh i think matt's still in shock but uh it's been a great season um missing the first round and then just clawing back some points i think the highlight has been you know when we had a win overall in in gt4 uh but newbridge and certainly matt you know his first year in in british gt and putting in those performances today was extra special so uh yeah i really enjoyed it when you say your first season in this man to be the gt4 pro m you know champions that's not a small title to take home is it not for me yeah i mean i feel a bit like when we first interviewed at silverstone after winning that i just don't know what to say it's complete shock i came here to race the aston martin gt4 and just enjoy myself and to get this is insane have you managed to enjoy yourself or has it been just pressure the whole time every minute even when the car is sideways at old airpin and you don't know if it's going to come back straight it's still amazing fun this is amazing yeah it's amazing to watch as well well done both of you thank you very much cheers thanks yes so there we go then darren turner on his return to the championship having never won a race in this championship until this year amazingly and uh here matt tottenham said right from the start of the year they wanted to race in the championship they wanted to race in gt4 specifically especially matt he was really excited to come and race in gt4 and gt4 not something necessarily that uh darren turner has a lot of experience racing certainly not as much as the uh gt3 or uh gte cars and uh yeah great great assets to the championship right then our overall champions dennis lind and leah machitsky i'd imagine brynn are rather happy i don't know if they're happy they look completely shell-shocked i don't know let's go to dennis first of all so dennis you had you know you had to get that car to finish fourth or above you knew that and you saw what yelmer was doing you did the job but it was it was a tough ask wasn't it today uh yeah it was uh we didn't have the best outcome in the race in the beginning of the race we struggled a little bit to activate the tires and it didn't really seem to come in until the final few laps before the stop and when i got into the car we were much lower pressure than the people behind so they were pushing quite a lot so i thought we're in trouble but it seemed like the tires came in in the end and i managed to get the final first slap as well and then there's leo over here who i i just want to put a pedometer on you leo to see your your step count for getting up and looking at the screen and sitting down again i mean it was it was you having kittens weren't you yeah i was i was very nervous the last 30 minutes uh was incredible uh in terms of nerves but i'll just translate what he just said what he basically said what he meant to say was at the beginning of my stint that was a little too slow um it wasn't the tires i actually did get the fastest damn lap and you got the fastest pro but unfortunately the gap built and the gap was too too big um for him to do anything he's still got his fastest lap which makes it that he's had a faster slap at every circuit that we visited this year so i want to say thank you for that he knows exactly what the motivation is for that for those fastest laps for me but i want to say thank you to barwell i think they've done an incredible job all year i want to say thank you to our competitors for keeping this exciting all the way through and i really look forward to coming back here next year to defend the title before i let you go and get your trophy just show us your hands leo show us your hands you've uncrossed those fingers well done gt3 champions thank you very much thank you thank you well yes i don't think they've really had a chance to catch their breath all afternoon those two but that was the moment that the red flag came out rare that that is a cause for celebration but it was for barwell motorsport today uh at the moment that uh the realization set in that they have done it they have won the intelligent money british gt championship and uh yeah very very popular victory for the team but also i think for the fans of the championship as well and uh that is a whole season's worth of work and effort and preparation uh and that is the moment that you do it all for you know it's not just the race weekends either the teams are out testing week in week out fettling the cars all of the work they do on race weekends as well builds up over the whole whole season and then the moment that you actually uh manage to make the achievements and win the championship it's just such a special feeling for a driver well we've got uh drivers ready and waiting for our podiums now then uh so we've got our race podiums but also i will be getting all of our uh class champions or at least our overall uh champions up onto the podium as well and uh this is uh a special moment obviously for all concerns so we start with our overall top three within gt3 it was the neary's of course who came home second simon richard neary having led uh the entire first hour and a bit of the race ending up on the third step of the podium second place for ian logging in yamaburman not quite enough for the overall title but they are your gt3 pro-am champions and then marcus clutton and morgan tilbrook they have done it their first ever race victory in the championship and it comes in pretty dramatic fashion here at donington park guys all this way with the trophies please the presentation of the trophy is being made by julian peniston hill who is the founder and ceo of intelligent money our series sponsor and we thank them once again for their support of the championship it really does mean an awful lot that they've committed to the british gt championship as the champagne spraying begins as always some of them who've been on the podium maybe more than others a little bit quicker getting the corks out of the bottles enduro motorsport though savouring the moment still as they celebrate that first ever win in british gt and uh again lots of relief and lots of emotion here i'm sure it's been a tough season at times for uh for those two marcus morgan racing a couple of different championships as well actually they're racing this the funko endurance championship very very busy drivers and marcus as morgan was saying uh is the uh team owner as well now then uh gt3 silver and uh sees tom and motorsport actually getting themselves up onto the podium on their return to the championship the proctors were second stuart and lewis another uh father-son uh combo and two father-son compose there on the silver and podium we've seen this a few times obviously richard and sam neary with the silver am race victory in gt3 so they've been on the first step of the podium once today and now they're up there on to the uh top step as again julian pederson hill is there to hand over the uh pretty their proper trophies those aren't they they are no expense spared here at british gt with the uh end of race silverware and the niris with beaming smiles on their faces uh definitely another team i think that could contend for an overall uh championship next season and uh had it not been for that crash at spa and uh uh issues having to miss snetaten as well they could even have challenged for the title this year actually but maybe 2022 will be the nearest year uh to uh to go for gold when it comes to the championship points incidentally the proctors had already wrapped up the silver ram championship before this weekend as well we've not really mentioned that championship we had enough to worry about points wise but congratulations to lewis and stewart proctor and balth motorsport uh meaning that mclaren get themselves some championship silverware in 2021 as well so we now will uh move on to the gt4 podium then the overall top three and it's fitting really at the end of the year that they've dominated that uh gus burton and will burns are on the race podium as well it's not a race victory but it is yet another podium they have only missed the podium those two on two occasions this year and on both of those occasions they finished fourth so what an incredible season the lowest finish of fourth all year long uh second place as we can see there and uh the race win as well we've got second place for the rocket rjn squad but it's academy motorsport that take the race victory in gt4 again their second race win both of them coming in the second half of the season they won the wet second race at snatterton and they win here in the final round of the championship at donington park and another team that rude um a non-finish here at donington earlier on in the season when they were caught up in an incident at the final corner and uh that meant they didn't score obviously and they they had the potential i think to challenge for a podium or a race win that day as well but academy i think they could do with keeping those two drivers on just to have a bit of driver stability going into 2022 and if they do that another team i think that could contend for many more race wins in the future so just make sure the macally is properly soaked the rain stopped but uh champagne shower altogether a lot more enjoyable than the weather that we've had earlier on today and uh celebrating their race win in gt4 now one more race podium to get through and that is the gt4 pro am it will also include our pro am champions of course because we know that ubridge motorsport have now managed to do enough just about uh to wrap that up we've got the uh academy aston martin squad that are second there on new bridge though and darren turner and matt topping their second in class in the race but they are the 2021 uh british gt4 pro and champions the class victory in the race though goes to fox motorsport after a disastrous start to the weekend obviously they had a pretty terrible qualifying session yesterday where jamie stanley struggled to get a legal lapping without exceeding track limits they started right at the back of the field and they came through to win in pro hour really uh really good effort that from nick and jamie and uh yeah another pro um uh victory for them just checking what their stats are on that front yeah that's their second pro and victory of the year uh as well so that is the last of our race podiums then here for the donington decider and we've seen many of our champions already but uh yes we still have championship podiums and whatnot to uh get through as well and this is almost the moment when actually that realization really hits because yes you know teams will be fully aware of what the point situations were but actually being officially crowned the champion is such a special feeling gents leo magitzki looks a bit lost doesn't he i think he's a bit bewildered by the whole thing it's he probably hasn't let himself dream about this possibility of actually being champion but it's happened barwell motorsport have won their second consecutive intelligent money british gt championship this time it's leo machitsuki and dennis lind their first ever championship victories in this series and they stand on the top step of the podium as your gt3 driver champions uh julian once again there on hand to conduct the podium ceremonies a fist pump from leo and a much more reserved celebration i'm sorry if this one from dennis a much more reserved uh celebration for leo but now the champagne flies once again as dennis and leo machitsuki are your champions in 2021 fantastic moments leo's still not quite got the uh but he's nowhere near getting the cork out is he uh thankfully a lot quicker when he's in the car than he is on the top step of the podium but then he's actually i think he's going to let him have his own moment to celebrate there it goes and leo vichitsky the most nervous man at doddington park can finally let it all go and uh relax and enjoy the moment a huge congratulations to them a huge congratulations to barwell motorsport as well the significance of winning the championship at donington park especially in all the circuits the one where they've had nothing but bad looking championship deciders in previous years and that will be really really significant for them then we have our gt3 pro am champions this was uh a pretty tight affair wasn't it just one and a half points in the end uh separating the top two teams uh but it is with a class win here or second place in class here today the championship for ram racing's ian loggie and yelmer berman they may not have beaten linda machitsuki to the outright title but they do beat them by the narrowest of margins for the pro-am championship that is again nice to see the two drivers that are pretty experienced hands actually in british gt logging in birmingham they've both been around for quite a while and logging driven a number of different cars and uh yama berman having a lot of success in mercedes in recent years of course and uh yeah yellman oh dear uh log he's not gonna be drinking the rest of that champagne is he say what the strong bottles aren't there maybe that didn't smash but uh ian logie that's really the only mistake he's made all day had a really good stint at the start of the race in very tricky conditions and yelma berman charging hard at the end coming up short of the race victory by just one second and well could have all been so different for them couldn't it now to gt4 then we've already seen them on the podium once but it is our gt4 pro am champions darren turner map top and for new bridge motorsport brilliant season within the pro-am ranks they were second in the class today but they had three race victories earlier on in the season at silverstone at spa and in the first race at alton park and um they have two overall british gt four class victories as well that silverstone race they won outright they also went out right at alton uh last time out as well so as i said during the race the fact that they didn't even do the final i'm sorry the first round of the championship at brands hatch to be here now as pro-am champions that is pretty special it's been a pretty competitive class as well pro-am uh so far in 2021 and uh yeah hopefully we'll get a few more of these pro-am teams coming in to compete against the silvers in the future so they are gt4 pro am champions are we done now with uh champions presentations i think we might just be waiting for uh for one more second fieldings there to get his caps and uh unfortunately retiring there with that uh strange what we think might have been an electrical fault towards the end confirmation then that dennis lind and leo machitsuki are your champions by nine and a half points over here and logging in yama berman with ballon and mitchell third eye going keen fourth and andrew howard fifth place in the championship he's not a champion this year but he still makes the top five let's take a look then at the highlights of the donington decider at the start of the race the track was pretty wet and greasy and mike ligo despite getting the lead or holding the lead from pole position into turn one unfortunately would come a cropper in the wet conditions he spun the rear wheels coming out of the old hairpin rotated the car off onto the grass he went and that wasn't the last time the wpi car will be visiting the scenery this afternoon it was looking good for leo machitsuki his pace wasn't spectacular in the first part of the race but he was staying out of trouble that was the main thing and just desperately trying to get that championship a very close moment for their nearest championship rival ian logging there almost tangling with the gt4 cars as they actually tried to unlap themselves from him going through the hairpin into the pit window and the transition from wet to dry tires came pretty much bang on the middle point of the race right when the pit stop window was open was exactly the right time to move on to slick tyres every team decided to do so and it meant the pace in the second half the race was significantly faster than the first dennis linds jumped into the number 63 barwell lamborghini knowing that he just had to hold position in order to wrap up the championship at the front of the field marcus clutton was a man on a mission challenging elmer berman and forcing him into a mistake that was for second place for enduro motorsport he then rapidly closed in on sam neary the race leader whose pace did seem to suffer as the track got dryer and he muscled his way through into a lead that enduro would never lose as they moved into the final half an hour sam neary then had a big moment through redgate corner that allowed berman into second and at this stage yelmer just needed to catch and pass the race-leading mclaren and they will be champions sadly it wasn't quite that easy to do a rad red flag came out at the end of the race as a result of the mclaren stopped out on track and that was enough for leo machitsuki and dennis lind to wrap up the 2021 intelligent money british gt championship [Music] you

Channel: GTWorld

Views: 83,072

Keywords: BlancpainGT, Blancpain, GT, GT3, Endurance, Sprint, Series, Cup, Motorsports, watch, FIA, driver, sportscar, racecar, car, events, Spa, 24h, team, europe, pro-am, pro, racetrack, British GT, R9 THE DECIDER, DoningtonDecider, GT3 Drivers’ Champions, Will Burns and Gus Burton, Leo Machitski and Dennis Lind, Ian Loggie and Yelmer Buurman, Michael Igoe and Phil Keen, Adam Balon and Sandy Mitchell, Andrew Howard, LIVE

Id: skyIBRUpBnk

Length: 170min 45sec (10245 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 17 2021