The fourth round of the Intelligent Money British GT Championship proved to be the strongest race of the 2021 campaign yet for Balfe Motorsport, securing a superb outright GT4 race victory for Ashley Marshall and Jack Brown. In addition, teammates Stewart and Lewis Proctor aced their first outright GT3 podium of the season, to further extend their substantial Silver-Am championship advantage.
The seeds of success were sown in testing Friday afternoon, followed by Saturday’s two official practice sessions. Both sides of the garage made substantial gains in terms of setup, especially as the weather turned from full wet to dry. Heading into qualifying, all options were covered.
Qualifying brought dry conditions that would remain for the remainder of the race weekend with Ashley and Jack proving a closely matched driver pairing once again as they recorded a time good for fourth position in the GT4 class, second in the Silver rankings. In GT3, an impressive final lap from Lewis moved himself and Stewart up to fifth position overall on the grid.
The start of the race was somewhat chaotic, with Richard Neary involved in a multiple car incident that eliminated himself and two others from the event even before the first corner. With the safety car out, this was actually good news for both Balfe Motorsport racers, as in the melee at the start, Ashley had vaulted to sixth overall with just the #57 BMW of Will Burns ahead of him in the battle for the class win.
The start incident had however seen the #90 GT4 sustain some damage to the right rear, and this made Ashley’s task all the harder with the car keen to rotate right, to the left less so. In addition, a shattered passenger window soon after from gravel trap debris made throttle application somewhat temperamental courtesy of the broken glass entering the driver's footwell.
Undeterred, Ashley pressed on, initially content to shadow Burns ahead as he had no real pressure from behind having gapped the #3 McLaren. Soon however, he changed tactics and started to apply the pressure and sure enough, heading into the 15th lap, he forced Burns deep into La Source, undercut the BMW racer and executed a perfect pass into Eau Rouge. Ashley was able to pull out a three-second margin before pitting and handing over to teammate Jack.
Resuming in the lead, Jack and the team understood that the Aston Martin factory racer was close behind in the #27 GT4. Whilst maintaining the lead as long as possible was the aim, the team knew that with the slightly damaged McLaren, they could not hold the position to the chequered flag. Jack did a great job at the head of the class, but when the inevitable pass for the lead came, he wisely gave space and continued his own race.
Inexplicably, however, Turner went on to get another track limits violation and with just a handful of laps to go, was awarded a drive-through penalty, which became a time penalty instead at the end of the race. This handed Ashley and Jack the GT4 race win, the first-ever race win for an emotional Ashley, and happy Jack, who just takes it all in his stride.
In the GT3 battle, Stewart’s stint was exceptional as he absorbed pressure from the #18 of Michael Igoe lap after lap. With #4 of Adam Balon having taken himself out of contention, it was a straight battle between Stewart and Igoe, whilst keeping Andrew Howard in sight ahead. The battle resumed in the second stint with Lewis and now Phil Keen at the wheel, but some unfortunate traffic on lap 27, made it all but impossible for Stewart to block the passing Lamborghini and he settled into third position, which he retained to the chequered flag to earn a first outright podium of the season and to extend his Silver-Am championship advantage to an impressive 30 points.
Balfe Motorsport heads back to base to prepare for the fifth round of the British GT Championship which takes place at Snetterton. |
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