Barwell Motorsport are to run a trio of cars in this year’s Avon Tyres British GT Championship, representing two different brands in the championship.
The team – with a rich history in running GT versions of Aston Martins – have already confirmed they will be run series newcomers Richard Abra and Mark Poole as the pair move up from the British Endurance Championship where they shared a BMW M3 GTR.
They will run the new car as well as continuing to run under the Ecurie Ecosse name, the famous name set to be represented by a pair of BMW Z4 GT3 this season, expanding out from a single car effort in 2012 when they almost delivered the drivers’ title to Alasdair McCaig.
However, for the new season McCaig is replaced in the team by Marco Attard who will co-drive with experienced GT driver Oliver Bryant in the lead BMW. Attard drove in a handful of British GT races in 2012, taking a GT4 class podium in the opening race of the season – a race, incidentally, won overall by Bryant and McCaig.
Attard also drove with the Rhino’s Leipert Motorsport team in their GT3 Lamborghini at the Nurburgring, Snetterton and Silverstone rounds.
Moving to the team from Speedworks to run under the ‘Ecurie Ecosse with Barwell Motorsport’ banner Ron and Piers Johnson will drive the second of the team’s BMWs. For Piers it marks a return to Barwell having run, with success, with Barwell in British GT before as well as driving one of the squad’s GT1 Aston Martin DBRS9 in an FIA GT even at Silverstone in 2007.
“I am hugely excited about the season ahead,” said Mark Lemmer, the Barwell team principal. “The last time we had a three-car squad in British GT all of them claimed race wins, and that is certainly our goal again for this year. Although some of our drivers are quite inexperienced, we are confident that they will make rapid progress as the season plays out.”
The British GT season begins on Easter Weekend at Oulton Park.
