British GT

MTECH Men Open Season Win Account With Spa Triumph

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After two consecutive second places Matt Griffin and Duncan Cameron ignited their Avon Tyres British GT Championship campaign, claiming their first win by a narrow margin at Spa-Francorchamps.

Cameron reached the checkered flag at the end of the hour long race just nine-tenths of a second ahead of Gregor Fisken in the no.2 Trackspeed Porsche. Matt Griffin was cautious behind the wheel of the MTECH Ferrari 458 for the opening laps of the race on a slippery track, running fourth behind the pair of CRS Racing Ferrari's and race one winner Richard Westbrook, who had taken his Trackspeed car from pole position into a lead away from the rolling start.

Griffin described the opening exchanges of the event; “It took a little time for our car to get to where I wanted it to be grip-wise, but once it did I was able to get past Alex Mortimer and Glynn Geddie and started to catch Richard; he then must have had some sort of problem and I got the lead and was able to get my head down and build a lead.”

The problem in question left Westbrook smoking towards the pits. The cause of the smoke – a puncture – and the resulting damage enough to end no.1 car's race after just nine laps, and at almost exactly the same time Alex Mortimer was forced out of the race from a top five spot for CRS Racing.

Westbrook's retirement handed Griffin the lead, which Duncan Cameron held onto after the spate of mid-race driver change pitstops, from the Beechdean Motorsport Aston Martin of Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam and the Geddie family Ferrari.

However, the man on a charge in the second half of the race was Gregor Fisken. His co-driver Tim Bridgman had finished race one with a whimper, losing two spots in the final laps shackled by an ailing car, but Fisken appeared determined to do exactly the opposite.

Fisken despatched Jim Geddie for their place on lap 16, and was second three laps later but seven seconds down track from Cameron. The rest of the race was a story of Porsche gaining consistently on Ferrari ahead, the gap narrowing to just two seconds with five minutes of racing left.

Ultimately Fisken was able to latch onto the rear of the Ferrari, but unable to find a way past to sweep the weekend for Trackspeed.

“It was very close,” said Fisken. “I certainly wasn't going to settle for second if I could have taken the win. The team kept telling me I was taking time out of him, but it would have needed a mistake from Duncan really to get past him cleanly. Duncan was driving very well; it was a real good scrap.”

Howard and Adam rounded out the podium for Beechdean, Jim Geddie slipping to sixth behind the McLaren MP4-12C and the United Autosports Audi of Matt Bell and Michael Guasch. The Anglo-American pairing had a quiet but consistent weekend, and now lead the points standings by just two points from the CRS Racing Geddies.

Speedworks' pair of unrelated Johnson's turned in another solid performance for seventh and more points, Ron picking up the Driver of the Weekend award from fuel suppliers Sunoco.

Rosso Verde pairing Allan Simonsen and Hector Lester ended an uncharacteristically below-the-radar weekend in eighth ahead of Scuderia Vittoria's Ferrari 458 and the second of the United Autosports Audis, driven by Jay Palmer and John Bintcliffe.

In GT4 the Lotus Evora pairing of Ollie Jackson and Phil Glew claimed the win comfortably. Glew had beaten off race one winners Scuderia Vittoria, passing David McDonald in the early laps to take a lead Jackson maintained in the second half of the race.

Having lost the lead, McDonald and co-driver Dan Denis seemed destined for second place before a gearbox problem on the penultimate lap allowed the no.44 ABG Motorsport KTM of Marcus Clutton and Peter Belshaw to take second.

In only their second British GT weekend Secure Racing/Barwell Motorsport drivers Peter Erceg and Chris Holmes finished third in class.

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James is our Diet-Coke fuelled writer and has been with TCF pretty much since day 1, he can be found frequenting twitter at @_JBroomhead
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