Multimatic Motorsports‘ #15 Ford Mustang GT4, driven by Sebastian Priaulx and Scott Maxwell, made the best of a bad hand during the Snetterton round of the British GT Championship. A combination of Balance of Performance adjustments and success seconds in the pit lane gave the duo a mountain to climb when the championship visited Norfolk this weekend.
Oulton Park netted a pair of poles and race win for the pair, who arrived at the second meeting of the season tied for the lead of the championship. That round 2 victory left the crew with a 10 second pit lane penalty on top of the 14 seconds of Silver Cup ballast.
Free practice saw the #15 Mustang place seventh in both sessions ahead of qualifying on Saturday. When it was time to set the grid, Maxwell went out first and set a stunning lap time to claim pole position for the first race on Sunday. Priaulx struggled more in the second session and could only secure tenth on the record 23 car GT4 grid.
In the first race Maxwell maintained second place through the first half-hour of the race before handing over to Priaulx. With the success seconds added to the stops in the highly competitive class, the #15 machine emerged from the stops in fifteenth place. Priaulx was able to make up two more positions before the chequered flag.
In the second race Priaulx initially lost ground, slipping back to 12th place in class at the start. He managed to hold on to twelfth through to the pit stops where he handed over control to Maxwell. A combination of overtaking and retirements ahead of the field gave the #15 fifth place at the end of the race. The pair now sit fifth in the overall GT4 standings and fourth in the Silver Cup with five races longer races left in the championship.
Priaulx said, “It was truly a damage limitation weekend for us with the penalties we received. Both races were tough, particularly the opener with the longer pitstop and then being held up by another car in the pitlane which cost us even more ground.
“Scott drove superbly all weekend and got us into fifth in race two for a crucial haul of championship points. Thank you to Multimatic Motorsport, they worked incredibly hard all weekend and together we did the best we could. We will regroup and come back stronger at Silverstone.”
The pair now have three weeks to re-group ahead of the blue riband event in the British GT calendar, the Silverstone 500 3-hour race in Northamptonshire.
