Ollie Jackson and Phil Glew left Spa-Francorchamps with the first GT4 class win for the Lotus Evora in the Avon Tyres British GT Championship.
Jackson and Glew, sharing one of the two Lotus Sport UK entered cars, came out on top in the Lotus versus Ginetta versus KTM versus Aston Martin in the second hour long race of the weekend at the legendary Belgian track.
Glew, who only raced with the team for the first time last month at Brands Hatch, won a brief battle against the Scuderia Vittoria run Ginetta G50, before pulling out a sizeable lead. After the mid-race pitstop to hand the red and gold Evora to Jackson their pair beat the Ginetta by 23 second to the checkered flag.
Scuderia Vittoria men David McDonald and Dan Denis had qualified on pole for both of the races, and had earlier won the first encounter comfortably for their own first class win of the season.
Jackson and Glew missed the podium in fourth, losing a lap under an ill-timed safety car after looking capable of winning early on. Leyton Clarke and Freddy Nordstrom finished one place ahead in third, adding a fifth place in the later race.
“This is our first win, and we're chuffed to bits,” said team principal Gary Ayles. “The car was really competitive all weekend. It's frustrating not to have won both races, because we should have done and it was not our fault that we didn't. The safety car waved us through and then pulled into the pits, and we found ourselves a lap down with nothing we could do about it. It was a cock-up by the FIA, and they've since apologized for it. But what is most encouraging is that the Evora has emerged as the GT4 class of the field and so we can be very optimistic for the rest of the season.”
