Donington Park Sunday 13th September 2015

The final round of the British GT championship saw The Spectator venture to Donington Park for the first time since July. A 2 hour race for the British GT's was the centrepiece of the BRSCC organised raceday. In support were double-headers for BRDC Formula 4, Ginetta GT5 Challenge & Volkswagen Cup.Add in to the mix  single races for Formula Jedi and Ginetta Racing Drivers Club and a 9 race programme was the result.
On a sunny early Autumn morning the days action started with a qualifying session for the Formula Jedi's and the always curious 10 minute GT warm-up before racing commenced with the Ginetta GT5 Challenge. An excellent entry of 30 cars saw an entertaining first race but the days second race was a very poor affair with the safety car making 2 appearances, which, in a 15 minute race led to paltry few racing laps. Callum Pointon and Ryan Hadfield sharing the wins but James Kellett emerging as 2015 champion.
Another staple diet on the Britsh GT package is the Volkswagen Cup. Their double-header saw an unusual format used where the second race was doubled in length to 40 minutes from the usual 20. I'm not sure this idea worked as a rather boring race ensued but at least there was a change for the lead for spectators to get excited about! Michael Epps VW Golf triumphing as he had in the first race of the day. Indeed the first race was the days liveliest with lots of action at the Old Hairpin and around the circuit with 8 drivers penalised for track limit violations plus an appearance of the safety car.....
Less interesting were a Formula Jedi race which saw only 8 finishers from 14 that started plus a Ginetta Racing Drivers Club race which was very processional.
I was eagerly looking forward to seeing the BRDC Formula 4 championship for the first time in 2015. Will Palmer clinched the championship at Donington with 2 very dominant wins but at least there was some good action for the minor placings.
Last but not least the days main event saw a decent 2 hour race for British GT's. There were 4 crews in the hunt for GT3 championship honours but with championship leader Marco Attard retiring early on in his BMW Z4 it was the Aston Martin Vantage of Andrew Howard & Jonny Adam who clinched the title with a 5th place finish. The race itself was won by the Vantage of Derek Johnston/Matt Bell who were never out of the top 2 all race long and finished ahead of their team mates Andrew Jarman/Jody Fannin. The battle for 3rd was decided on the last lap with Jon Minshaw/Phil Keen's BMW Z4 claiming the position. A healthy 30 cars took the start with an even split between GT3 and GT4 which bodes well for the future. It would have been 31 cars starting but the morning warm-up saw the McLaren 650S of Salih Yoluc crash heavily  near the Esses and was declared a non-starter.
All in all  not a bad day at Donington but there's still way too much use of the safety car happening at this level. 6 times it was seen throughout the day and apparently there were no local yellow flags being used to recover a car so if a car went off it was an automatic safety car. The afternoon's racing was covered live on Motors TV so strict TV schedules had to be adhered to, hence the safety car ruling I presume.
Good weather to report with a pleasant day trackside and a decent sized crowd was in evidence. Donington have certainly worked hard this season to promote their big meetings and have been rewarded with larger crowds than in previous years.
Admission was £10 with a £5 DPRAC discount and programme was £5