Greystone GT achieved one of the best weekends in the history of the team with landmark victories in both the GT Cup at Silverstone and in the McLaren Trophy at Germany’s world-renowned Nurburgring.
With Phillip Carter scoring his first career win on home soil and the Anglo-American duo Jem Hepworth and Rafa Martinez securing a maiden McLaren Trophy class win in Europe, it was a truly remarkable few days for the Silverstone-based squad.
GT Cup
Having come so close to a maiden race win over the past 12 months, Phillip Carter performed superbly at Silverstone to score his first victory in the GTH category in Saturday’s Sprint Race; surging forwards from second on the grid in his McLaren 570S GT4.
He and professional co-driver Michael Broadhurst added second in the afternoon’s dry Pitstop Race and did likewise in the wet on Sunday; Michael snatching the position with just over a lap of the 50-minute race to go.
In between was an excellent pole position – Phillip’s second of the year – set in Sunday qualifying and a superb drive to third on slick tyre in increasingly wet conditions, beaten only by drivers that had opted for rain tyres while the track remained dry before the start.
The results significantly boosted the duo’s title hopes as they sit third in the GTH points, only 36 points off the lead, having started the weekend 90 behind. There are 212 available from the two remaining rounds.
In the GT3 class Andrey Borodin scored the first pole position of his career for the final race of the weekend; doing so by virtue of setting the outright fastest lap of the morning Sprint Race in which he finished fourth after an early pitstop to fit wet tyres.
He led the opening third of the race convincingly and, despite losing a couple of spots before the driver changes, was able to give his professional co-driver Ed Pead the means to finish third and give the #24 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo a third podium of the year.
In the dry the previous day he and Ed had finished sixth in the Pitstop Race while Andrey ran solo to fifth in the Sprint.
The combined results netted Greystone GT the ‘Team of the Weekend’ award for the event while Phillip was named Driver of the Day for Saturday.
McLaren Trophy
Just minutes after Phillip’s Silverstone win came news of another first-time success at the Nurburgring as Rafa Martinez and Jem Hepworth triumphed in the 570S Trophy Pro-Am division.
Having run third early on, Rafa was elevated to the lead just before the mandatory driver changes; Devon racer Jem taking over and resisting late pressure to complete the duo’s victory.
Second on Sunday was enough to put them second in the 570S overall standings, just two points from the lead, with four races to go.
Team-mates Shaun Pendrigh and Stuart White completed a Greystone GT one-two in the class on Saturday and were third 24 hours later; Stuart setting fastest lap on both occasions.
The South African pair, who won last time out at Spa, climbed to fourth in the standings.
In the main Artura class, Derby’s Mark Hopton secured a best-ever second place in Saturday qualifying and then matched it on Sunday; his pro co-driver Euan Hankey sprinting into the lead at the start of Race Two and holding it to the pitstops.
An impressive run by Mark brought the car home second to add to the third spot he’d recovered to on Saturday after an early spin. They are second in the points as a result.
Mark McLoughlin, Team Principal, said: “It’s been an outstanding weekend for our teams and drivers in both the GT Cup and the McLaren Trophy with every single driver achieving a podium finish. For Phillip to get his first win and then for Rafa and Jem to add another within a few minutes was a great feeling, but everybody’s been working brilliantly for quite a while now and this is the result. Andrey, in particular, scored his first Fastest Lap and led the last GT Cup race on merit on what was, I think, his best weekend in a racing car. We are well and truly in the hunt for championship titles in both series, we’ve just beaten our own team record for podiums in a season with 25 and we’re all very excited for the rest of the season.”
