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Edition

Australia
Race report

Carroll hangs on to clinch British GT opener

Adam Carroll survived a late assault from Rory Butcher and Joe Osborne to take victory in the first British GT race of the season for himself and FF Corse team-mate Gary Eastwood at Oulton Park.

#18 FF Corse Ferrari 458: Adam Carroll, Gary Eastwood

#18 FF Corse Ferrari 458: Adam Carroll, Gary Eastwood

JEP / Motorsport Images

#007 Beechdean AMR Aston Martin Vantage GT3: Andrew Howard, Jonny Adam
#18 FF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia GT3: Gary Eastwood, Adam Carroll
#888 Triple Eight Racing BMW Z4 GT3: Lee Mowle, Joe Osborne
#44 Team LNT Ginetta GT3: Rick Partfitt, Tom Oliphant
#30 RAM Racing Mercedes AMG GT3: Alistair MacKinnon, Lewis Plato
#1 Beechdean AMR Aston Martin Vantage GT3: Andrew Howard Jonny Adam #18 FF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia GT3: Gary Eastwood, Adam Carroll

Taking advantage of a lengthy Safety Car period that co-incided with the pit window, Carroll jumped ahead of the Aston Martin Vantage of Butcher and Liam Griffin after taking over Gary Eastwood's Ferrari 458, and had enough in hand during the closing stages to repel the advances of his rivals.

Osborne seemed to be on the cusp of challenging Carroll after passing Butcher for second, but the Triple Eight-run BMW was held up in lapped traffic with only a couple of laps to go, dropping to third behind Butcher's Aston Martin Vantage.

Vaulting from ninth to third, Osborne, taking over from Lee Mowle, was the biggest winner of the mid-race shuffling of the pack that occurred under the mid-race caution period - caused by an accident involving the Aston Martins of Andrew Howard and Ahmad Al Harthy, both of which were running in the top five, that occured while the pair were trying to negotiate the lapped McLaren 650S of Salih Yoluc.

The Turkish driver's sluggishness in getting out of the way of the leaders allowed polesitter Griffin to establish a sizeable lead, only for his advantage to be negated by the Safety Car before the Oman Racing Team car dropped behind the Carroll/Eastwood Ferrari during the stops.

In a dismal race for the VonRyan team, the sister 650S of McLaren juniors Ross Wylie and Andrew Watson ended up the barriers at Island shortly after Watson had moved up to second at Eastwood's expense in the opening laps.

BTCC regular Mat Jackson finished fourth in an Aston Martin shared with Phil Dryburgh, ahead of the Hector Lester/Benny Simonsen Ferrari and the Marco Attard/Alexander Sims BMW.

GT4 class honours fell to the Ginetta G55 of Graham Johnson and Mike Robinson, after the Ginetta of James Birch and Aleksander Schjerpen was handed a penalty for a pitstop violation.

 Pos  Driver   Car/Team  Time/Gap 
1 Gary Eastwood
Adam Carroll
FF Corse
Ferrari
1h01:09.819 
2 Liam Griffin
Rory Butcher
Oman Racing Team
Aston Martin
1.089
3 Lee Mowle
Joe Osborne
Triple 8
BMW
2.379
4 Phil Dryburgh
Mat Jackson
Oman Racing Team
Aston Martin
14.383
5 Hector Lester
Benny Simonsen
Rosso Verde
Ferrari
20.614
6 Marco Attard
Alexander Sims
Barwell/Ecurie Ecosse
BMW
26.464
7 Steve Tandy
Mike Simpson
Team LNT
Ginetta
26.715
8 Andrew Jarman
Jody Fannin
TF Sport
Aston Martin
28.319
9 Tom Oliphant
Rick Parfitt
Team LNT
Ginetta
47.300
10 Ahmad Al Harthy
Daniel Lloyd
Oman Racing Team
Aston Martin
1'32.483
11 Graham Johnson
Mike Robinson
Professional Motorsport World Expo/Optimum
Ginetta/Ford
1 Lap
12 Jamie Chadwick
Ross Gunn
Beechdean AMR
Aston Martin
1 Lap
13 Terry Langley
Mike Hart
Quantamatic Racing
Aston Martin
1 Lap
14 Graham Coomes
Shaun Hollamby
AmD Tuning.com
Porsche
1 Lap
15 A.Schjerpen
James Birch
Century Motorsport
Ginetta/Ford
1 Lap
16 Osman Yusuf
Gavan Kershaw
Issy Racing
Lotus/Toyota
1 Lap
17 David Pattison
Luke Davenport
Tolman Motorsport
Ginetta/Ford
1 Lap
18 Kieran Griffin
Jake Giddings
JWB Motorsport
Aston Martin
2 Laps
19 Chris Webster
James Harrison
Academy Motorsport
Aston Martin
2 Laps
20 Adrian Barwick
Ellis Bradley
Twisted Team Parker
Ginetta/Ford
2 Laps
21 Tim Eakin
Jamie Wall
Stratton/UltraTek Racing
Lotus/Toyota
2 Laps
22 R.Taffinder
Martin Plowman
Stratton/UltraTek Racing
Lotus/Toyota
2 Laps
23 Chloe Edwards
Jade Edwards
Stratton/UltraTek Racing
Aston Martin
3 Laps
24 Paul McNeilly
Jamie Stanley
Fox Motorsport
Ginetta/Ford
3 Laps
25 Salih Yoluc
Euan Hankey
Von Ryan Racing
McLaren
4 Laps
26 Willie Moore
D.Strandberg
Academy Motorsport
Aston Martin
5 Laps
 Retirements
  David Jones
Godfrey Jones
Preci-Spark
Mercedes
Retirement
  Derek Johnston
Matthew Bell
TF Sport
Aston Martin
Retirement
  A.Mackinnon
Lewis Plato
RAM Racing
Mercedes
Retirement
  Jon Minshaw
Philip Keen
Barwell/Team Russia with Demon Tweeks
BMW
Retirement
  Andrew Howard
Jonathan Adam
Beechdean AMR
Aston Martin
Retirement
  Richard Williams
Stefan Hodgetts
GPRM
Toyota
Retirement
  Andrew Watson
Ross Wylie
Von Ryan Racing
McLaren
Retirement
  Mark Farmer
Jon Barnes
22GT Racing
Aston Martin
Retirement

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