> 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.
GT3: ADVANTAGE COLLARDS
Barwell’s Lamborghinis have largely bossed 2024, and the senior class battle between them now boils down to two key factors: points on the board versus Compensation Time.
Victory at Donington helped the Collards establish a 24.5-point lead over Martin and Mitchell. But there’s now a price to pay in the shape of 20 seconds extra in the pits on Sunday.
Their Barwell team-mates have no such handicap but must win or come second and hope the Collards finish no better than sixth or 10th. There’s often a twist in British GT’s tail but such a large deficit has never been overturned at the finale. The current record, 13, was set by Darren Leung and Dan Harper 12 months ago.
Either way, one of Rob and Sandy – who won the title together with Barwell in 2020 – would become only British GT3’s third multiple champion after Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam.
There is a third option, but Balfe and Smalley are 36 points behind the Collards with 37.5 available for winning. And they also have 10 seconds of Compensation Time to contend with. As such, Garage 59’s McLaren needs nothing short of a miracle if its drivers are to add the overall title to their Silver-Am crown.
Balfe has been here before, albeit all the way back in 2003 when as championship leader his title hopes ended in controversial fashion at Paddock Hill Bend. But he’s very much the outsider this time.
GT3’s only other undecided championship is Pro-Am after Barwell wrapped up the teams’ title last time out and Balfe/Smalley sealed Silver-Am at Snetterton. But a quirk of points scoring means the overall champions are not necessarily guaranteed to also win their class. The gap between Barwell’s entries stands at 24 points.
Ian Loggie and Phil Keen finished fifth at Donington but were knocked out of contention and have elected not to race this weekend. 2 Seas’ other entry, a Mercedes-AMG shared by Kevin Tse and Maximilian Götz, will be there, though. They’ve won twice this year, qualified second last time out, and should challenge again at a track where the same team and car took pole in 2023.
Driver changes prevent the likes of Beechdean AMR, Orange/JMH and Team RJN from scoring points this weekend. Tom Wood joins Andrew Howard, Benjamin Goethe partners Simon Orange, and Josh Caygill links up with Al Buncombe.
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
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 (GT4)
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.
