British GT: Tse and Götz win in changeable conditions for race 2 while Warren and Brown take another victory at Oulton Park

After qualifying on pole, Kevin Tse and Maximillian Götz bagged a dominant GT3 category win while Marc Warren and Jack Brown took their second victory of the day in GT4.

The whole grid started on the wet weather compound of tyres due to the light drizzle conditions making the track quite greasy. This would prove to be race critical for all the teams as some drivers chose to switch to the dry compound of tyre in the opening laps and ultimately losing out due to the tricky conditions.

Götz lined up on pole in GT3 and made an exceptional defense against Sandy Mitchell and Sven Müller in the opening phases, soon clearing away and bridging a gap. This was also helped by the switch to dry tyres for Mitchell due to the Collard and Cook Lamborghini setting quick times. The Mercedes squad only had to then defend from Müller as those who made the switch to the slicks started to struggle due to the conditions.

The GT4 class saw the Mahiki Racing squad lead initially but the class, much like GT3, became about strategy as the Optimum Motorsport cars that started at the back fought their way to the front sticking to the wet tyres all while Mahiki made the switch to dry tyres.

By the time the pit window had opened, Götz had pulled a seven second gap over Müller meaning the Compensation time incurred for finishing second in Race 1 of the day had been negated. In the pit stops, 2 Seas Motorsport made the bold switch to slicks despite the pace being shown throughout the first stint being sub-par compared to the wets. While it did initially hurt them against Nick Jones in the Porsche taking over from Müller, Tse got the tyre’s up to temperature and never looked back.

In GT4, Brown led from George in an Optimum 1-2 by the time the pit window opened and when they decided to do the pitstops, George came in first to swap with Hopkinson while Brown had to wait a lap later to do the swap with Warren. While they came out at around the same gap, with the Compensation time for leading Optimum and the Silver class handicap for the second car cancelling each other out.

The second placed GT3 Porsche of Jones would come under pressure from Simon Orange with a quarter of an hour to go. Orange would make the move and looked to have second place sealed until the Honda NSX had started making significant inroads. Ip would cut past Petrobelli and Jones on the same lap leaving the Honda just six minutes to make 11 seconds on new wet tyres compared to the worn wets on the McLaren ahead.

Tse went on to take victory comfortably but a massive tussle over the final podium places would take everyone’s attention. With 2 laps remaining, Ip was on Orange’s tail but an excellent defense from the McLaren meant he would claim second. Petrobelli and Adam would finish in 4th while Tillbrook and Kirchhöfer who recovered into a top 5 place after the Porsche slid off the road late into the race.

GT4 would see the Optimum McLaren 1-2 as Warren and Brown would take victory from George and Hopkinson. Mitchell and Lake would round out the podium ahead of Wheeler and Duggan in 4th while Templeton and Salkeld round out the top 5.