Shaun Balfe and Sandy Mitchell soared to victory in the Intelligent Money British GT Championship #DoningtonDecider in the #78 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini whilst the Century Motorsport duo of Darren Leung and Dan Harper took the 2023 title.
The championship fight came down to the wire with 13 points separating Leung and Harper from their rival, James Cottingham in the #4 2 Seas Motorsports Mercedes. The #91 Century Motorsport BMW partnership would have to fight to overturn that gap and did so with an exemplary drive.
Leung took the lead at the start after going round the outside of Andrew Howard in the #97 Beechdean AMR Aston Martin and , after a lengthy Safety Car interruption, floored it and built a lead of nearly 20 seconds.
But as the pitstops neared, that lead was completely cut after the Safety Car was called out once again for a multitude of incidents. With 20 seconds to be served during the pitstop, the BMW dropped to 13th from the lead and behind their championship rival.
Harper, now in the BMW, began his own charge through the order and set his sights on Cottingham’s teammate, Philip Ellis. Harper picked rivals off one by one and passed Ellis even before the 2 Seas driver was given a drive-through penalty for overtaking under yellow flags.
The drive -through sealed the deal but still Harper worked his way up to second place at the flag with Ellis crossing the line in 10th.
Mitchell and Balfe combined immense pace with the compensation time their rivals were forced to take. They fought through to the lead after the pitstop phases with Mitchell bravely going side-by-side with Marcus Clutton in the #77 Enduro Motorsport through the Craner Curves. The only driver who could come close to Mitchell’s late race pace was eventual champion Dan Harper. Clutton and his teammate Morgan Tillbrook rounded out the GT3 podium.
The six-way GT4 title went the way of Erik Evans and Matt Cowley in the #61 Academy Motorsport Ford Mustang. The duo did all they needed to do and won the race to take home the title.