Century Motorsport enjoyed a strong start to the 2013 Michelin Ginetta GT Supercup during the opening rounds of the season at Brands Hatch.
Championship newcomer James Birch is leading the team’s assault this season and the reigning Porsche GT3 Challenge Cup champion produced a consistent weekend in Kent.
In bitterly cold conditions, Birch qualified his theplayer.co.uk-backed Ginetta G55 ninth on the grid, which he converted into eighth place in the opening race, his progress hampered by a steering problem though.
A great battle with Fergus Walkinshaw and Andrew Watson followed in race two, with Birch emerging ninth, before rounding off the weekend with eighth in race three.
“Overall I’m happy to come away from the weekend with three clean finishes,” said Birch. “I think my qualifying position let me down a little but overall I’m confident now that I know what we need to do for Donington Park in a couple of weeks time.”
Birch was joined in the Century awning for the weekend by fellow series newbie Rob Smith. On his first time out in the car, Smith qualified eleventh, with a spin on the opening lap of the first race leaving him seventeenth at the finish.
Race two went better, with a strong drive seeing him work his way up to twelfth at one stage before settling for fourteenth at the finish. Race three produced his strongest results, Smith narrowly missing out on the top ten in eleventh.
“It’s been a bit of a mixed weekend overall,” added Team Principal Nathan Freke. “Rob having not driven the car before Friday has been a baptism of fire for him but we’re very pleased with his progress throughout the weekend and we’re hoping he’ll join us again this season. On reflection we have had a good weekend with James considering we have only had one days dry testing with him. We both wanted better results and we will be testing before Donington to ensure we arrive there better prepared.”
