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Silverstone showdown

October 5th, 2020

Sandy heads to Silverstone next month knowing a win in the season finale of the British GT Championship will clinch the title. The 20-year-old finished second and fifth in the latest double-header at Snetterton. But only a troublesome seatbelt cost Mitchell, and his team-mate Rob Collard, a podium and possible race win in the day’s second one-hour race. Starting from pole position, after a scintillating lap in wet qualifying, Sandy conceded the lead at the first corner to the fellow Barwell Motorsport-prepared No72 Lamborghini. But the duo quickly established a healthy advantage over the rest of the field. Knowing his No78 Lamborghini had to serve an extra seven-second success penalty at the compulsory pitstop, as a result of having finished second in the day’s opening race, Sandy had opened a comfortable 12.5s gap in the skittish, greasy conditions to the third placed car when he entered the pits.



“Initially the pitstop went smoothly,” he explained. “But we unfortunately got one of the shoulder belts jammed behind the seat insert. The delay cost us an extra 20-seconds. In all we lost 27s at the pitstop over the leaders.” Collard rejoined in fifth-place, nearly 30s behind the leaders, and seven-seconds off fourth. Though he crossed the finish line fifth, the former British Touring Car Championship race winner had closed the gap to the winner to just 13.097s, and a tantalising 0.597s to the fourth-placed car. In the day’s opening race, which started behind the Safety Car due to the atrociously wet conditions, Collard started from fifth. Sandy, driving the second 30mins of the race, then rattled off eight successive quicker laps. Entering the final lap lying third, he was less than a second behind the second-placed car. After hounding it for the bulk of the 2.96-mile Norfolk circuit, Sandy got the perfect entry and exit from the final corner and grabbed second place on the line by just 0.081s. The results leave Sandy and Collard second in the overall championship race, just six points behind the leaders, and seven points adrift in the Silver Cup.

“Overall, the race weekend at Snetterton was very good,” Sandy stated. “We got a pole position, and were the fastest GT3 Silver car in both races. More importantly, we’ve closed the gap to the championship leaders to just six points, and we also have no success time penalty to serve in the three-hour race at Silverstone. We go there knowing if we win the race, we’re champions. That’s a prospect which would appeal to every racing driver. It’s all to play for.”