Andrew Gordon-Colebrooke and his Century Motorsport team made the trip to Northamptonshire’s Silverstone circuit for the third round of the British GT Championship and the blue riband event of the season, the Silverstone 500. After having endured a tough weekend last time out at Snetterton, Gordon-Colebrooke and his team were determined to bounce back at the WHIreland Wealth Management driver’s home event. The team had a positive start to the weekend on Saturday with two promising free practice sessions. In both wet and changeable conditions, the BMW M4 GT4 prepared by Century Motorsport showed good pace and Gordon-Colebrooke was feeling confident in the car. Subsequently, Gordon-Colebrooke moved on to qualifying with high expectations after practice. Unfortunately, he got held up on his best lap thanks to a slow moving GT4 car and as a result, the team just missed out on the top ten in qualifying. After a quick Sunday morning warm-up session and some practice pitstops, the Buthlaw Automotive and Tyrrell Automotive backed racer was ready for the three-hour endurance race around his home track. Gordon-Colebrooke took the start and managed to keep his nose clean as he stayed behind the wheel for the majority of the first hour of the race, before handing the driving duties over to teammate Angus Fender from a top ten position. Getting back into the car just after the halfway point of the race, the Lillingstone Dayrell-based driver enjoyed some good battles during his second stint and managed to gain a number of positions, all whilst impressively fending off a couple cars that were on much fresher tyres. Thanks to his efforts, the #43 Century Motorsport BMW was in the hunt for a top five result as Fender took over within the final hour of the race. A great stint saw him stay out of trouble and bring the car home in seventh overall in GT4 and fourth in the Silver Cup for their best result of the season so far. Andrew Gordon-Colebrooke: “Across the two practice sessions the car felt excellent. When I was out in FP1 it was very wet and cold, extremely slippery to start with, but the car did feel good. When FP2 came the conditions were changing from wet to dry and the car felt excellent to drive. “We were confident of a strong qualifying session but unfortunately it proved quite frustrating. We had the pace to be in the top ten for sure, but on my fastest lap I got held up by a slow-moving car and we reckon that cost me around six to seven tenths of a second. “It was a really tense race, but fortunately it all went well for us. We had some incredibly fun battles throughout the race and certainly had to fight our way up the order. All in all, we’re pleased with fourth place in the Silver Cup. Both myself, Angus and the rest of the team will be looking to build on today as we head into the second half of the season.” Andrew Gordon-Colebrooke and the Century Motorsport team will be in action in the fourth round of the British GT Championship in just two weeks’ time (22-23 June) at Donington Park. All the races throughout the season can be streamed live on the British GT website.
Image from Jakob Ebrey Photography.