British GT Championship: Pole & Points
Lamborghini Factory Driver Sandy, bags Pole position and Vhampionship points in latest British GT Race with Black Bull and Barwell.
Sandy, and his AM team-mate, Shaun Balfe, bagged pole position and another sizeable haul of points in the latest round of the Intelligent Money British GT Championship. But the two-hour battle at Donington Park was dominated by a 38-minute safety car period which impacted the second-half of the race.
“Overall, given the circumstances,” it’s good to leave Donington with more championship points,” Sandy, the 23-year-old from Forfar, partnered by Balfe in the No 78 Pro-Am Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2, prepared by Barwell Motorsport, stated. “Shaun delivered a stunning performance during his qualifying stint, topping the timesheets, which when combined with my quali meant we started the race from pole position. He then made a brilliant start and comfortably led the race for the opening phase before dropping back a few places towards the end of his stint as he began to struggle with tyres and grip.”
With 58 minutes of the race completed, the safety car was deployed following an incident which caused damage to a tyre wall. When the GT3 cars rejoined the track after their compulsory pitstop and driver change, Sandy was in ninth place having served his additional 15-second success penalty, a result of the duo’s second place finish last time at Silverstone.
But just as the safety car was about to exit the track, allowing the race to restart, a second incident involving a car which stopped on-track extended its presence.“When the race finally restarted, there was only 24 minutes of the two-hours to run,” Sandy, personally backed by Huntly-based Black Bull Scotch Whisky, Tunnocks, Lamborghini Edinburgh, Upper Dysart and Alan Davie Transport, explained.
“I managed to get the car up to seventh place, but given the short period of racing, allied to the fact all the Pro drivers are so close in performance, as are the GT3 cars, there was very little opportunity to make any more ground.”
“Seventh wasn’t where we planned to finish, but under the circumstances I think everyone in the team achieved the best we could. We started from pole position, developed the car further, given this was only our third race with the Evo2, and scored more championship points.
“Now we head to Snetterton for the next double-header in a few weeks. We’ve won there before, so it offers us a great platform to bag another podium, and hopefully our first win of the season.”