Greystone GT’s second season in the British GT Championship began in some of the most challenging weather conditions experienced for many years on Easter weekend at Oulton Park.
Fresh from a GT Cup podium finish at Donington Park the previous weekend, the team moved north to Cheshire for the annual Bank Holiday Monday races that have become a British GT tradition in the past decade.
For the first time Greystone GT’s full-season line-up features two cars with series newcomer Mike Price and multiple race winner Callum Macleod in a Mercedes-AMG GT3 and Silver-Am podium finisher Andrey Borodin sharing a McLaren 720S GT3 Evo with former European Le Mans Series champion Oli Webb.
It was Macleod who was out of the blocks fastest as he set the fourth-fastest time in the second free-practice session on Saturday, but a traction issue hampered he and Mike in qualifying, limiting both to 10th in Pro-Am.
With the rain falling heavily before the start of Monday’s opening race, but stopping during the early stages, Mike gained rapidly in pace and reached the mid-race driver changes in an impressive eighth spot against a slew of far more experienced series. regulars.
Callum – who had slick tyres fitted at the pitstop – continued the climb and was up to fifth before a second rainshower created an ultra-slippery track surface, contributing to a spin into the gravel – and out of the race – with just five of the 60 minutes to go.
Another top-10 finish was on the cards in Race Two before a one-second stop/go penalty was applied due to being fractionally under the minimum pitstop time. This dropped Mike from a top-10 position to his eventual position of 12th in Pro-Am.
That was one place ahead of Andrey, who was racing at Oulton Park for the first time and, like Mike, was faced with incredibly difficult weather conditions on race day.
Both he and Oli qualified 12th in Pro-Am on Saturday, affected by a technical issue that was rectified for race day. Mired in the pack and struggling for visibility in the wet conditions, they were 12th and 13th in class the two races.
The British GT season continues with the longest race of the season; the ‘Silverstone 500’ on May 6-7.
Mike Price (#3 Mercedes-AMG GT3) said: “I entered British GT because I wanted the challenge and experience of the UK’s premier GT race series and I certainly got that. The competition was first-class and the British weather delivered crazy changeable conditions on raceday. The results don’t do justice to our performance and mistakes were made that cost us some top-10 results. While that’s disappointing, there are some big positives to take in terms of race pace and, crucially, a terrific performance by the team. We move forwards with a lot of optimism.”
Callum Macleod (#3 Mercedes-AMG GT3) said: “That was probably the toughest set of circumstances Mike could have had for his British GT debut, but he dealt with it really well. We both struggled in qualifying so we were right in the pack for the start of the races. Mike’s Race One stint was brilliant, and I was as high as fifth, but running on slicks as the second rainshower hit made it tricky and I locked the rears on a downshift and swapped ends. We went for a set-up for Race Two that would have been mega if – as expected – it dried out, but the heavens opened on the formation lap and from there progress was hard. We’ll analyse what happened and move forwards.”
Oli Webb (#24 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo) said: “It hasn’t been an easy weekend with the weather conditions on raceday especially, but we’re up and running for the season. Andrey had never been to Oulton Park before so the target was to get him as much seat time as possible and get him familiar with the layout. The Evo kit came quite late so that’s put us on the back foot a bit, but by Race Two – once we’d sorted a couple of car issues that had been affecting us upto that point – things felt quite normal and I was able to keep Callum in sight during my stint. If we can start at Silverstone where we finished here, we’ll be much stronger.”
Mark McLoughlin, Team Principal, said: “Oulton Park was tough. When one driver’s making their debut at this level and another’s racing at the track for the first time, you just hope for clear weather so you can set a plan to move forward as the weekend progresses. We didn’t get that, or the results we wanted, but there were some positives to take away. Mike’s pace was strong and he and Callum are clearly going to be in the hunt for top-five results across the season. There was also clear progress made with the McLaren of Andrey and Oli once we’d got to the final race. Silverstone, our home event, is next.”
