Shepherd Is King Of The Field As Lotus And Porsche Win At Donington
Jay Shepherd gave the National Motorsport Academy's Lotus Evora its first overall race win in the GT Cup Championship as they shared Sunday spoils with G-Cat Racing at Donington Park (21/04/2024).
The NMA squad almost enjoyed a double success after Shepherd's heroic Endurance Race performance earlier in the afternoon in Leicester, narrowly beaten to victory by the chasing G-Cat Porsche 911 GT3 which also won on Saturday.
Shepherd hit back to win the Sprint outright and confirm a double GTO triumph on Sunday, with two group wins also going to Topcats Racing's #2 Lamborghini Huracan (GTC) and Forsetti Motorsport's #9 Aston Martin (GTH).
The latter therefore leads the overall championship after three wins in four, ahead of Shepherd and the NMA team in what already looks a gripping title fight.
Qualifying
Ian Loggie picked up where team-mate Richard Neary left off on Saturday as he secured a brace of pole positions in the #6 Team Abba Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3. Taking the wheel of the GTO pace-setter under blue skies and sunshine, Loggie lowered the fastest time of the weekend so far with a 1m04.518s to ensure he took the top spot ahead of Shepherd's National Motorsport Academy-run Lotus Evora.
Also doing the double was the #9 Forsetti Motorsport Aston Martin of Matthew Higgins who powered the black-and-green machine to the top, but saw his early advantage nibbled down by Charles Dawson - Higgins holding on to take GTH spoils by 0.233s.
Shamus Jennings gave G-Cat Racing the best chance to repeat yesterday's Pit Stop Race heroics by qualifying the Porsche in third overall and first in GT3.
Topcats Racing continued its strong pace in the Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo as Charlotte Gilbert pipped Miles Rudman to GTC pole. Rupert Williams rounded out the pole-sitters by taking the top spot in GTA in the Jolt Racing McLaren 570S.
Pitstop Race
In a change from Saturday's schedule, the afternoon action kicked off with the 50-minute Endurance contest. Starting from pole position was Neary, but fellow front-row starter Jay Shepherd stunned the Mercedes-AMG with a rapid start to grab the early lead.
The #7 Lotus Evora continued to lead in an enjoyable first handful of laps, but soon came under pressure from Neary. The latter would not be able to challenge his rival much longer however, after spinning into the gravel at McLeans corner.
The recovery that followed required a safety car interruption and on the restart, Shepherd opened up a 12-second lead before the pit window opened for the top three groups.
That gap widened further to 20 seconds, but the G-Cat Racing Porsche had by now filtered its way through to second overall with Greg Caton now behind the wheel after Shamus Jennings' initial stint.
The gap fell rapidly, and a late charge by Caton concluded in style with a second win of the weekend for G-Cat Racing as he swept by the Lotus exiting Old Hairpin with less than five minutes on the clock to confirm victory.
Shepherd held on to second place for a GTO win behind the GT3 winners, with GTC going the way of Topcats Racing's Gilbert and Tom Rawlings after a superb drive by the Lamborghini Huracan pairing. Gilbert surpassed both Jennings and then the GTO Lamborghini of Paul Bailey in swift succession - Bailey briefly third overall thanks to a charging David Brabham - to confirm a second win in three races.
Dawson surged into an early GTH lead for Team Parker Racing and battled it out with the Aston Martin of Higgins initially. The pair soon swapped places in the second half of the race, Higgins and Mikey Porter winning for Forsetti Motorsport ahead of Paddock Motorsport's McLaren Artura, following an exceptional drive by Michael Orant and Jake Poole. A third GTA group win went to Jolt Racing's McLaren.
Sprint Race
The shorter 25-minute Sprint Race was Shepherd's chance for redemption, and with pole-sitter Loggie missing from the front row due to brake problems it gave the #7 Lotus Evora its chance to shine.
Shepherd duly delivered, and kept his cool after a strong start to bring home the well-deserved victory for the National Motorsport Academy crew by just under three seconds at the chequered flag.
It meant two GTO group wins also for NMA, ahead of the impressive GTC winners Topcats Racing thanks to another fine drive by Gilbert. Third on the road went to Bailey in his Kendall Developments Lamborghini Huracan, ahead of Jennings in the GT3-winning Porsche and the second Topcats Racing Huracan of Warren Gilbert.
In GTH there was an enthralling race-long battle for the top spot between Team Parker Racing's Dawson and the two Forsetti Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage machines.
Dawson defended his lead position for much of the contest in scintillating fashion, but was eventually usurped by a late-braking Higgins who grabbed the lead and the group GTH win with a move at Redgate. Dawson did manage to hold off the second Vantage of Jodie Sloss for second, pulling clear in the closing laps.
#2 Charlotte Gilbert
“It was quite a tough beginning because I was stuck behind Jennings and Bailey and I had Rudman right behind me - I got tapped a couple of times from behind because I was so boxed in! So I knew I had to get past the two cars, luckily when Rudman hit back at me he dropped back a bit so I had a bit of space and I knew I could for Jennings and go for Bailey as well. Glad to get third overall!”
#9 Matthew Higgins
“The car has been mega and the team have been mega. It’s my first race weekend in GTs and I can’t thank everyone around me enough, Forsetti has done a great job to help me along. GTH has been really tight, in my first race I probably left a bit too much room, just a bit of awareness of how big the car is! It’s a bit bigger than the karts I’m used to, but yeah that last one I got more comfortable and got the elbows out a bit.”
#31 Charles Dawson
“It was a really solid weekend, P3 in Sprint on Saturday and P1 in Endurance and then bumped up to P3 and P2 today - some hard-fought battles with Higgins in the Aston but that’s racing. We were a bit worried with how quick they were at the start of the weekend but it seems like we kind of managed to find a little bit of pace.”
#12 Miles Rudman
“The car has been performing really well so really enjoyed it. The racing is great and everyone seems really fair so it’s been a great day. I was trying my hardest, the Lamborghinis have a few extra horsepower than I have so I was out-driving the Porsche trying to keep up with them. I tried my best to keep them behind them but there’s only so much defending I can do, but other than that it’s pretty fair racing!”
