Donington Park Sunday 14th September 2014

Autumn for me is THE best time for spectating. I've always felt there's something a little bit special about being trackside at this time of year. Championships are usually at stake so racing has an extra "edge" to it with drivers eager to end their year on a positive note. The weather is a factor too with cooler temperatures helping spectators who burn easily in the Summer sun and you are less likely to fall asleep during boring races if it's cooler too.....
My first meeting of September saw the final rounds of the British GT/F3 package arrive at Donington along with races for Ginetta GT5's, Volkswagen Cup, Ginetta Racing Drivers Club and Aston Martin GT4.
The definite highlight of racing on Sunday was the 2 hour British GT finale. As mentioned on this blog before, GT racing is one of the success stories of recent years and a very healthy grid of 31 cars took the start. There was early drama when championship leader Marco Attard's BMW Z4 developed a gearbox problem and had to retire. 2nd in the points duo Michael Caine/Ahmad Al Harthy's Aston Martin Vantage could only finish 4th so Attard could breath easily at race finish and was crowned 2014 champion. The 2 hour format works very well in my opinion for this level of GT racing with the slower driver starting the race and the faster driver finishing. The race was won by the Porsche 997 of Jon Minshaw/Phil Keen and a very good scrap for 2nd saw the Ferrari 458 of Ollie Hancock/Gary Eastwood hold off a late charge from the Audi R8 of Matt Bell/Mark Patterson.
From the sublime to the ridiculous however as the British Formula 3 championship races saw a pair of terrible 5 car, 30 minute races. How this once great series came to this sorry scenario is worth a blog in it's own right but the fact of the matter is 5 cars circulated Donington for an hour and even for a die hard spectator, this simply is unacceptable. For what it's worth Martin Cao won the title but even then he elected to start the final race from the pit lane to avoid any potential incidents at Redgate on the first lap! Single seater racing is in a Mess in this country and radical surgery is needed to prevent it collapsing altogether.
Ginetta's provided 3 of the days race with a couple of entertaining GT5 races along with a less entertaining Ginetta Racing Drivers Club race. This series was created along the lines of the Caterham Academy where for a fixed fee a novice driver purchases a car and is led through the ARDS test and into their first racing experience.
The days only red flag was in the second VW Cup race and both races were lively with some end of season panel bashing in evidence! This series has evolved from catering for all kinds of VW into almost a 1-make Scirocco R series with a few Golf's added to the mix.
Racing into the sunset (at Donington all final races of the day tend to finish in the gloom...) were the 7 cars in the AMR GT4 Challenge. Quite how or why this series has managed to get on what is the UK's 2nd most prestigious car racing package is a mystery as car numbers have never been great. At least organisers put them on last but I do feel sorry for Marshals who haven't the option of leaving early.
All in all not a bad day. Very good in parts, very poor in others which is the way of most meetings these days. Good to report a larger than average crowd in attendance, a hint of free tickets about. Good weather to report too with the day staying dry and pleasantly warm at times. Admission was £10 with the usual £5 DPRAC discount and programme £5.