Andrew Gordon-Colebrooke battled the elements to grab more crucial GT4 points with a fourth place finish in the latest British GT Championship meeting at Snetterton this past weekend (03/04 October). Returning to the championship for his first races since a spectacular maiden British GT podium finish at Brands Hatch GP circuit in August, Gordon-Colebrooke headed to Norfolk's Snetterton 300 circuit hoping to continue that rich vein of form with Century Motorsport. The Buckinghamshire racer was joined by Ben Tuck after being on the sidelines for the visit to Donington Park last month, and immediately felt back at home in his BMW M4 GT4 as he took to the track for Saturday morning's brace of free practice sessions to clock up some early mileage. Mother Nature was not kind across the weekend with rain hitting the circuit in the opening practice sessions. Gordon-Colebrooke kept his nose clean throughout and collected valuable track time and data ahead of qualifying, for which the conditions eased somewhat in time for the crucial 10-minute timed sessions. Wet tyres were still the order of the day however, and the 27-year-old extracted all he could muster out of the BMW to climb up to seventh place in his individual session, less than a second from the front row in GT4 as the car finished just 1.090s from pole position in class. The Buthlaw and Questor Studios supported driver was handed seventh in class on the grid for the first of Sunday's two hour-long races, held in evidently worse conditions. Gordon-Colebrooke took charge of the opening stint which began behind the safety car as a precaution, and kept his opposition well within reach throughout the first half-hour. Handing the car over in contention among the battle for fifth, the chase continued, with Tuck taking seventh at the flag albeit less than four seconds from a fifth place finish. Similar conditions greeted the BMW man for the afternoon's second one-hour contest. Starting from sixth on the grid, Gordon-Colebrooke jumped into the car at the halfway stage sitting in a much more satisfying fourth place. A solid stint would follow, Gordon-Colebroke's times consistent throughout as he brought the car home in fourth place in class - fifth of all GT4 cars. Andrew Gordon-Colebrooke: “It's great to be back out there with Century Motorsport, and we made good progress on Sunday to climb our way up to where we did which I think was a target result after Saturday. "Conditions throughout the weekend haven't exactly been the best for us, but we gave it our all and kept our nose clean. I was satisfied with the result after qualifying and don't think we could have got much more out of it considering the conditions, so I was looking forward to getting stuck in on Sunday. "We did all we could in the opening race and, from my perspective, I didn't make any mistakes and we kept in contention for a possible fifth place finish throughout. If we'd had a longer race then we could have attacked the McLaren ahead, but we had hoped to beat the Ford and Toyota and managed to do that in the end. "I'm looking forward to one last push in the British GT season finale at Silverstone. It's a very unique circuit with a lot of fast cornering and high-speed sections, so hopefully the weather won't be against us and we can fight for a good result with it being a longer race." Gordon-Colebrooke heads to Silverstone next month (7/8 November) for one final three-hour British GT race, hoping to round out a strong season in style.
Image from Jakob Ebrey Photography.