British GT: Harper and Leung win second Silverstone 500

The crown jewel of the British GT calendar saw Dan Harper and Darren Leung take their second victory at the event in three years.

The Silverstone 500 saw an excellent race in both classes with the pole sitting McLaren of Morgan Tillbrook maintain his lead through the opening lap ahead of Kevin Tse who was making a challenge. Meanwhile in GT4 Josh Miller would maintain his lead as well by 4 tenths of a second over Ravi Ramyead who had already passed Marc Warren in the McLaren.

Rob Collard made his way through to 5th passing Leung in the BMW taking advantage of traffic in the early stages of the race. Tillbrook and Tse built up a small lead at this stage as well managing to put a few seconds between them and the challenging pack. Further down the field the Century Motorsport BMW and the Beechdean Aston Martin made contact before the other Aston Martin went for a spin after contact with the Team Parker Racing Porsche a corner earlier the following lap.

The first round of pit stops soon came as the Bridger Motorsport Honda, the Team Parker Porsche’s and Century’s BMW made their mandatory first pit stop. The Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini’s meanwhile continued to fight out on track as Rob Collard passes teammate Alex Martin for 4th place. Meanwhile, in GT4, Miller and Mahiki Racing continue to lead ahead of the BMW of Ramyead with the McLaren’s Marc Warren and Harry George in 3rd and 4th.

Disaster would strike for Mike Price and Callum Macleod as their Optimum McLaren would stop on the circuit causing a full course yellow to be deployed allowing the rest of the GT3 field who have not pitted to do so. This drops the second placed 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes and the third placed Blackthorn Aston Martin down the order significantly as both pitted before the Full Course Yellow happened.

The Full Course Yellow would soon turn to a Safety Car as Paradine put Darren Leung back in the car allowing him to use up more of his minimum race time and put Dan Harper in the car later against the Amateur drivers. Once back under green flag running there was contact between Kevin Tse and Marcus Clutton at Copse with both getting away with it mostly unscathed.

Another full course yellow would need to be deployed only a few minutes later as the Spirit of Race Ferrari would get thrown into the gravel trap. The green flags would be thrown once more as Sam Neary now leads while the Paradine BMW in fourth has done now the extra pit stop. However, in GT4 the race leader of Mahiki Racing and Aiden Neate have yet to make their second stop while the rest of the field has.

Both Barwell Motorsport cars would be given penalties as well as the Kevin Tse and Maximillian Götz Mercedes. The Alex Martin and Patrick Kujala Lambo would be given a 1 second stop and go penalty for a short pitstop while the championship winning Lamborghini and the Mercedes would be given a drive through penalty for overtaking under yellow flags. But in GT4 it would keep heating up as the scrap between the two Century Motorsport BMW’s and Warren’s Optimum McLaren would fight for second place as it hit the halfway point before disaster struck for the race leader. The Lotus of Aiden Neate and Josh Miller would have a rear left failure with the suspension as the car would be retired from the race, leaving the battle for the win wide open and another full course yellow. In the midst of all this the Beechdean Aston Martin yet to pit for a second time was leading the way.

Off the restart, last time out race winner Kiern Jewiss took the lead from Andrew Howard but both cars need to pit again. The Paradine BMW looked to be all set for a second Silverstone 500 win for its drivers before another twist with the team earning themselves a 1 second stop and go penalty for a short pit stop handing the lead back to Jewiss and Dawson with only 45 minutes to go. Meanwhile Century Motorsport was leading the way in GT4 by 10 seconds over two-time winner Jack Brown.

One final twist in the tale, as would be the case for the Silverstone 500 every year, would hand the lead back to the BMW pairing as Jewiss and Dawson was handed a drive through penalty for overtaking under yellow flags meaning they would lose the lead once more. The race would come down to the final moments as Jewiss would be hunting down Harper in the final half an hour bringing the gap down to half a second but it was not enough to catch the Paradine squad as Harper and Leung win the race for the second time. The GT4 class win would be taken by Century Motorsport with Ravi Ramyead and Charlie Robertson taking the top spot quite far clear of Jack Brown and Marc Warren in second place.