> GT3 and GT4 titles will be won at two-hour season finale
> Collard, Mitchell and Morris could all join exclusive British GT clubs
> Entry list: Brands Hatch
British GT 2024 concludes this weekend at Brands Hatch where both the GT3 and GT4 titles will be decided across two hours of racing.
The battle for senior class honours is almost an all-Barwell affair. Rob and Ricky Collard enjoy a comfortable but not insurmountable lead over team-mates Alex Martin and Sandy Mitchell, while Garage 59’s Shaun Balfe and Adam Smalley are also mathematical contenders.
GT4, on the other hand, is much closer thanks to 13.5 points separating the four title contenders. Forsetti’s Mikey Porter and Jamie Day have a slender head start over their Silver class rivals Jack Brown and Zac Meakin (Optimum), but Pro-Am’s two leading protagonists – Charles Dawson and Seb Morris (Team Parker Racing), and Marc Warren and Will Orton (Forsetti) – also retain realistic hopes of winning overall.
Those seven cars contribute towards a 31-strong entry featuring several debutants. All will contest British GT’s first season finale to be held at Brands Hatch since 2009 when David and Godfrey Jones won the GT3 title in their Preci-Spark Ascari by a single point from Hector Lester.
Weather permitting, the Red Devils British Army Parachute Display Team will drop in just before the start of Sunday’s race. And there’s also a fan pitwalk and autograph session, albeit at the earlier-than-normal time of 09:05.
Can’t make it? No sweat! British GT’s battle of Brands is live on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel and Sky Sports F1 this weekend.
GT4: LITTLE TO SEPARATE TITLE CONTENDERS
13.5 points – fewer than the difference between finishing first and third – cover the remaining contenders at Brands.
As such, even the crew in fourth – that’s Forsetti’s Warren and Orton – could conceivably overturn their deficit. They were bang in contention before Donington where a first non-score of the season dropped them behind Dawson and Morris overall but not in the Pro-Am standings.
Team Parker’s duo lies 7.5 points off outright top spot but are the only championship chasers with Compensation Time. If he were to overturn it Morris could become only the second-ever GT3 and GT4 champion after Rick Parfitt Jnr, with whom he shared 2017’s crown.
Standing in his and Dawson’s way are two Silver crews that have led all season. 3.5 points separate Zac Meakin and 2023 runner-up Jack Brown from Mikey Porter and Jamie Day in the overall standings, while 15 points cover them in class. Forsetti’s Aston can afford to finish one place behind the Optimum McLaren if it’s fourth or lower, although that also depends on where Dawson, Morris, Warren and Orton end up.
The top two have been closely matched throughout 2024 but often compromised by Compensation Time. Neither will serve it on Sunday when, instead, it’s the Silver crews’ longer mandatory pitstops that could be crucial to the outcome of this year’s GT4 championship.
It’s still possible that points could be tied, but Porter/Day would win on countback against both Dawson/Morris and Warren/Orton, while Team Parker’s crew beat Forsetti’s #47 duo.
Mathematically, GT4’s Pro-Am championship has one more possible protagonist: Century’s Ian Gough and Tom Wrigley are 28 points adrift of Warren/Orton but will have +10 seconds in the pits for finishing third overall at Donington.
Three wins in the last four outings makes Century the form team over the second half of this year. But the drivers responsible for two of those victories, Ravi Ramyead and Charlie Robertson, are absent this weekend. Instead, Chris Salkeld steps back into the same BMW with which he won 2023’s Pro-Am title.
There are also changes at Toyota Gazoo Racing UK where GT3 race winner Michael O’Brien joins debutant Benjamin Tusting.
BRANDS HATCH TIMETABLE
SATURDAY 28 SEPTEMBER
09:30 – 10:30: Free Practice
12:10 – 13:10: Pre-Qualifying
15:55 – 16:05: Qualifying 1 (GT3)
16:09 – 16:19: Qualifying 2 (GT3)
16:23 – 16:33: Qualifying 3 (GT4)
16:38 – 16:48: Qualifying 4 (GT4)
SUNDAY 29 SEPTEMBER
09:05 – 09:45: Pitwalk + autograph session
10:00 – 10:15: Warm-up
13:30 – 15:30: Race
LAP RECORDS
GT3 – 1m24.480s – Dan Harper – Century Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 – 2023
GT4 – 1m32.197s – Charlie Robertson – Assetto Motorsport Ginetta G56 GT4 – 2021
PITSTOP SPECIFICS – TWO-HOUR RACE
The number of driver changes are free but there are minimum and maximum total drive times for the starting driver. In GT4 starting drivers must complete a minimum of 58 minutes, while in GT3 this rises to 62 minutes. All classes share the same maximum starting drive time of 70 minutes.
Mandatory Pitstop Times (pit-in to pit-out)
GT3: 125s | GT4: 155s
Pitstop Compensation Time
20s – #63 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini (GT3) + N/A (GT3)
15s – N/A (GT3) + #31 Team Parker Racing Mercedes-AMG (GT4)
10s – #59 Garage 59 McLaren (GT3) + #29 Century Motorsport BMW (GT4)
All GT4 Silver Cup entries must serve an additional 24s during their mandatory driver changes and carry 25kg of ballast.
