Factory AMG driver Adam Christodoulou will race for Team ABBA with Rollcentre Racing at this season’s remaining British GT rounds, starting with the championship’s blue riband, three-hour Silverstone 500 event this weekend.
The 27-year-old joins Rollcentre’s regular drivers Martin Short and Richard Neary in a three-man Pro/Am crew at Silverstone before partnering the latter at each of 2017’s remaining rounds.
The reshuffle comes following Short’s decision to step back from British GT3 driving duties after Silverstone in order to concentrate on his team management role.
Christodoulou, who also competes in the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup, won the 2016 Nurburgring 24 Hours at the wheel of a Mercedes-AMG GT3, the same model he’ll now campaign in British GT for the rest of the season. It will be the former Formula Renault UK and Star Mazda champion’s first experience of domestic GT3 competition, although he did finish third in the 2013 GT4 standings after winning on debut at Silverstone.
“I'm really excited to be racing a GT3 car in British GT for the first time,” he said. “Unfortunately it wasn't possible to do Snetterton because I was racing at the Nürburgring 24 Hours, but Silverstone is a track that we all know well, so we just have to make sure that we make no mistakes and use everything to our advantage.
“Martin has decided to take a step back and be on the pitwall managing for the rest of the season with the GT3, so it's good with Silverstone being a three-hour race that it allows the three of us to race together. Hopefully we can send him off on a high!
“We’ve done two tests so far and between the test he did at Snetterton and the race, [Neary] made a nice jump forward. We managed to work on the setup and get him to have a little bit more confidence, which was good to see. Hopefully that will only continue as we work together more over the remainder of the season.”
Short made his British GT debut at Silverstone in 1996 driving a Porsche 928 GTS alongside Andy Langridge. His next appearance, and Rollcentre Racing’s first, came four years later with their TVR Cerbera programme, and both driver and team have remained a championship mainstay for much of the time since.
The 58-year-old said his decision to stop racing in GT3 had been an easy one after witnessing Christodoulou’s potential during recent tests at Snetterton and Silverstone.
“Richard and I started out on this adventure together and he’s been very keen for me to continue racing but I increasingly felt like the time was right to stop in GT3,” he said. “So I contacted AMG who sent me a list of available drivers and Adam’s name stood out. He tested our car at Snetterton before the British GT round there and was immediately two seconds a lap faster, which confirmed everything I needed to know.
“We’d have actually put him in for Snett were it not for his Nurburgring 24 Hour commitments but his schedule allows him to do the remaining British GT rounds, so it makes complete sense for Silverstone to be my championship swansong as a driver. I’ve got absolutely no regrets, and would rather watch them get results from the pitwall than drive around at the back! I’ll still be racing in other categories but it’s highly unlikely I’ll race in British GT again.”
British GT’s blue riband, three-hour Silverstone 500 race begins at 13:35 this Sunday. Tickets, which start at just £12, are available here, while live coverage is also available on Front Runner TV and the championship’s Facebook page.