Top Ten finish for Smith & Plowman at Spa

Mark Smith & Martin Plowman headed into Europe for British GT’s annual ‘away day’ event, returning to the picturesque Spa-Francorchamps circuit for the first time in two years. Plowman and Smith both shone throughout wet and dry practice on Saturday and bagged a ninth place start in GT3 qualifying. 

The race on Sunday began in chaotic fashion and was quickly red-flagged, Smith taking to the grass to skilfully evade a multi-car wreck ahead of him.

Unfortunately, with his radiator now full of grass Smith had to pit to clear the debris from his radiators. After a one-hour delay to repair the barriers Smith now in P27 made up 10 places at the restart and a string of personal fastest laps bought him back into contention but a spin at the end of his stint dropped him back a few places before pitting and handing over to Plowman.

With bodywork damage from the late spin affecting the aerodynamics Plowman continued to push but a drive-through penalty in the closing minutes limited Plowman and Smith to ninth place in GT3 Pro-Am, having broken into the top 10 after their unscheduled early stop.     Mark Smith: “To be honest, I’m actually quite happy. My pace was really good and I feel I’ve made progress as a driver. My race pace was two seconds a lap faster than my qualifying time, so I really got to understand the car more and more as it went on. It was getting faster, but we were already at the back because of the enormous mess at the start. I managed to get through that despite it happening in front, behind and alongside me – I found a route around it on the grass, but that meant we had to pit. I can’t be too upset because that wasn’t my fault, and the fact my pace was top-five of the AM’s… I’m happy. One bad race is fine if I’m battling at the front in my next 100 races.”