Greystone GT led a British GT Championship race for the first time on the way and equalled their best finish in the series in a dramatic ‘Silverstone 500’ on Sunday.
The longest race of the season – at three hours duration – was no less chaotic than what preceded it on Saturday – but resulted in team newcomer Mike Price scoring his first top-10 finish aboard the Mercedes-AMG GT3 he shares with Callum MacLeod.
That Saturday chaos was created by intense non-stop rain during the afternoon that created some of the most appalling track conditions in British GT history and led to the cancellation of qualifying.
With the grid instead set based on the combined best times of every car’s pair of drivers in final practice, Mike started 10th in the GT3 Pro-Am class and ran strongly through an early stint that was cut short after just 20 minutes due to an incident-induced safety-car period.
Mike dived for the pits – as did most of the field – and handed over to Callum, his experienced professional co-driver, who maintained a spot in the top 10 both in Pro-Am and overall, across his stint.
Both drivers remained in the hunt through their final stints of the three-hour race and came home seventh in Pro-Am and eighth overall – matching the best outright finish by a Greystone GT entry in British GT.
It was team-mate Andrey Borodin – starting a British GT race for only the fourth time - who became the first Greystone GT competitor to lead a race in the series.
Opting for an alternate strategy, Andrey stayed on track during an early safety-car period while many others chose to pit; his McLaren 720S GT3 Evo elevated into the lead after 25 minutes.
Pitting under green-flag conditions for the first time put he and professional co-driver Oli Webb – whose pace once aboard was a match for the race leaders – a lap down.
They remained trapped there due to the unfortunate timing of another safety car in the final hour and finished 12th in Pro-Am.
International GT Open regulars Andrew Gilbert and Fran Rueda made their British GT debuts at Silverstone; bringing their Altitude Racing by Greystone GT McLaren 720S GT3 Evo to contest the Silver-Am category.
After running third in class in FP2, the Anglo-Spanish pair started sixth on combined times and spent the first half of the race fighting hard in a multi-car battle for fourth place.
Dubai-based Brit Andrew – who was only racing GT3 machinery for the fourth time – was at the wheel when contact while lapping a slower GT4 car caused a puncture and associated damage that eliminated the #84 entry.
The next round of the British GT Championship takes place at Donington Park – scene of a Silver-Am podium for Andrey and Ed Pead last year – on May 27-28.
Mark McLoughlin, Team Principal, said: “It’s been a bit of a chaotic weekend with both the rain on Saturday and the non-stop drama of the race that meant we were thinking on our feet quite a lot to adapt to the ever-changing circumstances. It was great to see ‘Greystone GT, P1’ on the timing screens during the race – even if it was only for a short time – and pleasing that Mike and Callum have taken a solid top-10 result. They deserved it at Oulton Park in the wet, but now they have it and it’s something we can build on. It was the first time we’ve had our GT Open and British GT teams together at a race event and everybody worked well together as Andrew and Fran competed in British GT for the first time.”
