It was announced today that the partially run second British GT Championship race from Oulton Park would actually hand out full points for the abandoned event.
The result means that the #33 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini driven by Phil Keen and Jon Minshaw will be classified as the race winner with a time of 8mins 19.8 seconds, making it one of the shortest national GT3 races in recent history. In GT4 it was Team Parker Racing who came away with the race win.
The decision has been labelled as controversial, not just for the fact the rain-affected event only lasted eight minutes, but all three laps had been run behind the safety car. With conditions worsening, the safety car was stopped on the fourth lap, with results being counted back a lap.
Losing most from the decision was Optimum Motorsports. After winning the opening round of the season, Jonny Adam suffered rear-left damage after an off-track excursion prior to the race, forcing the team to pit.
Their rivals from race one in the Lamborghini Hurican GT3, who started on pole, took an easy win having suffered a puncture in the earlier encounter. Track-Club who won the first GT4 race, was classified sixth ensuring that Tolman Motorsport leave the weekend as the GT4 championship leaders.
According to the MSA UK and British GT Championship rulebook, a minimum of two laps is required to complete a race and as 4 laps were run and the weather-terminated event was not restarted, a race can be declared with full points.
The championship rules ‘2.6.1.2’ and ‘2.4.1’ cover the eligibility of the decision.
It is suspected the move was done to ensure the championship ran at its full length, with a rescheduling of the round unlikely to happen this season due to time constraints.
