Barwell Motorsport team boss Mark Lemmer is a man with much to celebrate. His two Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO race cars have amassed 147 points in four races, putting the Surrey based team 98 points clear in the 2019 British GT Championship‘s GT3 teams battle.
After one of his drivers, the highly successful Phil Keen completed his second win of the day on Sunday, making him the most successful driver in British GT history, we spoke to Lemmer about his team’s astonishing performance.
Trophy Cabinet Fills Up.
First, we congratulated Mark Lemmer on his crew’s achievement, pointing out that after a pre-season and early season of great success, the team’s trophy haul was very impressive. Along with the commanding position atop the British GT Championship table, the crew also sit at the top of the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup Am Team’s title race.
His answer showed his immense respect for the sport;
“Every time you win a trophy in a major championship it’s a privilege. You never know when you are going to get another one and its a fantastic result.
“Other teams are struggling to find their feet with new cars. We’ve done an incredible amount of testing. All the other teams are working hard but no-one has worked harder than us during the pre-season. We knew the car worked really well around here, its a mid-engine car circuit really. We hoped to come away with good points but this is a bit better than we’d hoped for.”
They Handled The Pressure.
On his pair of ‘Am’ drivers in British GT, Mark had nothing but praise for Sam de Haan who shares with Jonny Cocker in the #69 entry and Keen’s partner Adam Balon. Balon’s performance to sit at the top of the drivers championship so early is especially impressive. Last year the Innocent Smoothies boss raced for the first time in British GT, in a GT4 McLaren.
“They are both reasonably inexperienced in GT3 but are both fantastic characters. They’ve both got a really good attitude to their racing. Both are very different but they are both working very hard to improve their technique and their race-craft. There is one thing you cant teach, that’s handling the pressure and today they handled the pressure very well.”
Both de Haan and Balon quickly caught and passed the race leader Mark Farmer in the second encounter at Snetterton. Lemmer suspects it was tyre wear which contributed to his drivers impressive pace;
“I don’t know if TF Sport changed tyres at the pit stops but we changed tyres at both stops in both races. We thought that was the right tactic. Our car works really well over a stint, it’s really good on the tyres. But other people catch up and other people get better.”
Mark Lemmer Looks Ahead.
With Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup out in two weeks time and the largest race of the year for the British GT field just a week later, Lemmer is quietly confident heading into the peak of the season. On the team’s prospects for Silverstone he told us;
“I know the car did really well in Blancpain last week. We struggled in testing initially but then we found a chunk of time last week. We are feeling better about Silverstone now but its a tactical race and anything can happen. We are confident though, we’ve got the right tools in our box. We are at the stage now where we are confident at every single circuit we go to.”
