Macdonald Wins on debut at Spa

The two-hour British GT race at the iconic Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium saw 17-year-old Dean Macdonald take his maiden victory in a GT car on his debut with the Century Motorsport BMW Team.

Macdonald from Fife, Scotland recently switched teams and arrived for qualifying with only one day of testing under his belt to partner the more experienced Jack Mitchell.

With Macdonald taking the start in the #43 GT4 BMW from 7thposition the safety car was deployed on lap one for an incident involving two GT3 cars. Once racing resumed Macdonald moved up the order and was involved in an intense battle with the #55 Ginetta that would see the pair swapping places for almost 40 minutes.

As the pit window opened, the race was about to take a sudden and dramatic twist. The leading cars all headed to the pitlane for their mandatory driver swap leaving Macdonald out in clear air. Then the deployment of the Safety Car changed the race’s complexion once more when a perfectly timed pitstop by Macdonald who handed the car over to new team mate Jack Mitchell bought them out in the lead.

As racing resumed, Fagg in the #4 McLaren was putting Mitchell under huge pressure at the front of the field and as time ticked down, Fagg tried everything he could to get past the BMW, but Mitchell stood firm to take the win crossing the line just 0.387 seconds in front.

Dean Macdonald

“I’m really happy with our performance this weekend especially as it was my first race with BMW and having only had one day in the car before this race. To get my first ever win at this iconic circuit is just brilliant. I want to thank my team mate Jack Mitchell who was a big help to me over the weekend and he drove a fantastic stint to hold on to the lead. Also big thanks to the team for the support and giving me a fantastic car. I’m really looking forward to the next round at Brands Hatch”.

The next round is at Brands Hatch on the 4th& 5thof August.