Another Strong Performance from Macdonald at Brands Hatch

17-year-old Scottish racing driver arrived at Brands Hatch for the penultimate round of the British GT Championship in confident mood fresh from his maiden win in Spa, Belgium two weeks ago. However, the win in Spa would mean the Century Motorsport pairing would need to serve a 20 second success penalty in their pit stop which would make their chances of a second win very tough.

With another 2-hour race on the Grand Prix circuit qualifying times from both drivers are combined to give the final qualifying position for the race. First out to qualify would be Macdonald and again he did not disappoint setting a time of 133.273 just 0.013 ahead of the sister BMW M4 GT4 car and giving him pole. Experienced team mate Jack Mitchell was next up setting a time of 132.772 which combine meant the #43 car would be on pole position by just 0.022 of a second.

For the start of the 2-hour race Macdonald would be at the wheel and as the lights turned green the 29-car grid thundered into turn one, unfortunately by turn three the sister BMW had managed to squeeze passed Macdonald demoting him to 2nd. Undeterred Macdonald pressed on and started to make a gap from 3rdplace which would be vital if they were to limit the effects the 20 second time penalty would have in the pit stop. Unfortunately, the safety car was deployed to retrieve a car that was in the gravel destroying the gap Macdonald had created. Shortly after the restart another safety car was deployed for a huge accident on the start finish straight and would continue almost up to the pit window. Macdonald and team mate Mitchell now had an almost impossible task of making up the 20 second success penalty and when Macdonald handed the car over to Mitchell they emerged in 9thposition. After two cars ahead were given drive through penalties for pit stop infringement’s this elevated Mitchell to 7thand he set about closing the gap but unfortunately ran out of time and would cross the line in P7 over all and 3rdin the Silver class.

Dean Macdonald

“Overall, I’m really happy with the weekend especially with the pole position in only my second race in the BMW. We had really good pace but were always going to struggle with the success penalty, 7thwas the best we could manage but I knew that when the race started so I guess we achieved our goal and scored valuable points towards the team Championship. In Spa the Safety car worked for us but here it was the opposite but that’s how it goes.

I’m really confident we can continue our strong form as we go to the last round at Donington, it’s going to be an exciting race as the teams and driver’s Championship titles will be decided there. The team have done a great job and I want to thank them and BMW for their support”.

The last round is at Donington on 22nd& 23rdof September