Three excellent podium finishes at Snetterton sealed Greystone GT’s highest-ever championship finish in the GT Cup as the curtain fell on the 2022 season.
An inspired drive in the weekend’s opening race by Mark Hopton in the GTH class plus additional top-three results by Iain Campbell in GT3 and in Saturday’s Pitstop Race by Phillip Carter and Michael Broadhurst provided a strong end to the campaign.
Derby racer Mark was the undoubted star of the opening Sprint Race of the weekend.
Having qualified only ninth aboard his McLaren 570S GT4 after a fuel-sensor issue prevented him from setting a representative laptime, he scythed through his rivals to climb to third by the chequered flag – his eighth podium of the year.
Significantly he also became the first Greystone GT Sporting Driver to set a fastest lap in a GT Cup race, netting pole position for the Pitstop Race.
Despite another fastest lap for the #77 McLaren on Saturday afternoon – this time set by Professional co-driver Euan Hankey – a 20-second ‘success penalty’, incurred due to the duo having won the previous event at Donington Park, limited them to fifth in the Pitstop Race.
The car added eighth and fifth on Sunday to seal fourth place in the GTH points, the best-ever championship finish in GT Cup for Silverstone-based Greystone GT.
While Mark and Euan’s success penalty on Saturday put them out of contention for the class win, team-mates Phillip and Michael in the #14 McLaren were right in the hunt.
They combined for second place – equalling their best result of the year – and added that to seventh on Sunday – dealing with their own 15s success penalty’ and fifth and sixth for Phillip in the Sprints. They finished sixth in the championship.
The team’s third podium finisher of the weekend was Iain Campbell, who came home second in GT3 in Saturday’s Sprint Race aboard his McLaren 720S GT3.
Sandhurst racer Iain, who was a contender for the runner-up spot in the GT3 points, suffered awful luck in the Pitstop Race when a punctured tyre – a likely result of running over debris on-track – caused him to spin and sent him into the pits for replacement rubber.
He and his pro co-driver Oli Webb, from Knutsford, lost a lap as a result, but fought back to fifth by the flag. Ian was fifth on Sunday morning, but a broken oil-tank seal caused a fire in the McLaren’s engine bay in the final Pitstop Race, putting him out.
Rich Mason and Jon Lancaster claimed their first top-six finish in GT3 at only the duo’s second event since debuting the team’s Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo as the Yorkshire duo came home sixth in Sunday’s Pitstop race.
Harrogate racer Rich and his Leeds co-driver Jon achieved the result after Rich had taken eighth in the Sprint. Sadly Rich lost control on fluid dropped by another car early in Saturday’s Sprint, the resultant damage against a barrier ruling the car out of the later race.
Competing in their third GT Cup round of the year, Andrey Borodin and Ed Pead were also in action with their McLaren 720S GT3.
Andrey spun on the same fluid as Rich in Saturday’s Sprint but finished all four races including seventh-placed results with Ed in the Pitstop Races and a seventh and a ninth in the Sprints.
Greystone GT ended the year with 17 podium finishes – 10 more than in 2021 – and five wins; an improvement over last season’s lone victory.
While the GT Cup is at an end for 2022, Greystone GT’s season continues this weekend with dual-programmes in the final rounds of both the British GT Championship and the International GT Open.
Mark McLoughlin, Team Principal, said: “Three podiums, split across three cars in two classes represents a strong finish to the season for us and naturally I’m very pleased that we’ve shown a marked improvement on our 2021 results across this season as our Sporting Drivers have gained in experience and our team infrastructure has evolved. The GT Cup is an ideal entry-level point into GT racing and has given us the platform we’ve needed on which to build our team and expand into international racing this year. Every one of our GT Cup Sporting Drivers has been part of the Greystone GT family since the inception of our race team in October 2020, so it’s extremely fitting that they’ve all been with us for this journey.”
