Carl Garnett has maintained his top three position in the Ginetta GT Championship points standings with a hard-fought hat-trick of top six finishes in the latest rounds at Snetterton (17/18 June).
The trip to Norfolk brought to an end a busy spell of racing for Garnett, as the third event in the space of four weeks. Having previously secured a handful of class podium finishes in the Ginetta GT4 SuperCup at Snetterton, he was looking forward to returning to racing there again.
A productive day of testing on Friday led into a satisfying qualifying session for the York-based racer, as he put in a pair of good laps to secure fifth on the grid for the opening two races. Unfortunately, the first of those proved to be a frustrating encounter though.
After initially making a good start to shoot into fourth place off the line, a couple of errors through the first sequence of corners led to him dropping to sixth. From there, a subdued race saw him maintain that position through to the chequered flag in his Breakell Racing Ginetta G56.
Garnett enjoyed a stronger showing during the second race on Sunday morning. After waiting a few laps for the tyres to come in, he got into a good rhythm with consistent lap times and caught onto the tail of the car ahead, narrowly missing out on the chance to attempt an overtake.
The best was saved until last however, with Garnett enjoying some fun battles on track in the final race. Improving his lap times as the race wore on, he eventually secured a weekends’ best result of fifth, hot on the heels of the driver ahead at the finish.
Carl Garnett:“To be honest, it has been a disappointing weekend overall. I’ve really struggled to match the pace of the top three / four drivers throughout which is frustrating, but then again there have been some positives I need to focus on as well and there was some fun battles out there.
“Two sixths and a fifth is not the most exciting set of results on paper, but it’s a truthful reflection of the pace I produced and it’s good to have a bit of a break in the schedule now to reset the mind before the next rounds. Thank you to the Breakell Racing team for a great job with the car again.”
The 2023 Ginetta GT Championship season now pauses for the summer break, with the next rounds taking place in five weeks’ time at Cadwell Park in Lincolnshire (22/23 July).
Image from Jakob Ebrey Photography.