Greystone GT scored their best overall British GT Championship result to date at Snetterton with an heroic performance by Mike Price and Callum Macleod.
The Greystone GT mechanics had worked tirelessly to repair the #3 Mercedes-AMG in just 17 days after it was rolled during the previous event at Donington Park and Mike repaid their efforts by qualifying a career-best seventh during Saturday’s Am session.
Hopes of a race result to match were thwarted on the first lap when he was pushed off the track at the ultra-fast Coram corner and spun, but a strong recovery by the British GT rookie and multiple race-winner Callum brought the car to 10th in Pro-Am by the chequered flag.
All the promise shown was delivered later in the day, however, flawless stints by both Mike and Callum ensuring a richly-deserved sixth-place finish overall (and in Pro-Am) for the duo and the best finish to date in the series for Silverstone-based Greystone GT.
The sister car; the #24 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo 22 of Andrey Borodin and Oli Webb continued its improved recent form and started both races from 13th spot in Pro-Am.
Fourteenth in Race 1 was followed by a good opening stint by Oli in Race Two; only for a clutch issue to require repairs in the pits that cost the car several laps and dropped it out of contention for a good result.
International GT Open
A single McLaren 720S GT3 was entered for the third round of the season at the Hungaroring, Hungary, for father-and-son duo Stewart and Lewis Proctor.
The former British GT Silver-Am champions, who were competing at the Budapest circuit for the first time, acquitted themselves well during Friday practice; Stewart later qualifying a career-best ninth in Pro-Am morning and Lewis going seventh in his session.
Lewis did well to avoid becoming involved in a multi-car incident at the first corner of Saturday’s opener and drove a consistent stint to maintain seventh in class while Stewart took over at the mid-race pitstops and finished the 70-minute race 10th.
That result was repeated on Sunday, a five-second time penalty added post race for exceeding track-limits that cost the car one place in the class.
GT Open returns at Circuit Paul Ricard, France, on July 21-23 while British GT is back at Portimao, Portugal on the same weekend.
Mark McLoughlin, Team Principal, said: “I’m proud of the job the team’s done to get the Mercedes-AMG ready for Snetterton after the incident at Donington and pleased for Mike and Callum, who have been victim to some unfortunate events this year – including on the first lap on Sunday. They deserve this result and it gives us all a platform to build on now to go and achieve plenty more in the final three races of the season. We found some key improvements during recent tests with the GT Open McLaren and were able to use these with Stewart and Lewis in Hungary. The upshot was they had a strong weekend with Stewart’s best qualifying performance yet. It’s a great foundation for a much stronger second half of 2023 in both series.”
