Darren Turner and his Grange Racing by FSR team-mate Dan Lavery moved to the top of the British GT Championship GT4 Pro-Am standings following an outstanding double race-winning weekend at Snetterton, in Norfolk.
It marked the fourth class win of the season for the duo, who have also claimed victories at Oulton Park and Spa-Francorchamps. Turner, already a two-time GT4 Pro-Am champion (2021 and '22), now finds himself right in the hunt for the overall GT4 title, following a sparkling weekend that once again exceeded expectations for the team in its first full season of competition.
"Everything is really gelling with the team now," said Turner, who came away from the weekend with a class tally of 14 victories so far in his British GT career. "The team's in a good place. This is the first weekend where everything has clicked into place in the way that it should, in terms of the team's performance. On track and off track, everything came together smoothly. Perhaps the extended race weekend in Spa [where Grange stayed on to contest the GT4 European races after the British GT round in late June] helped — I think it's really brought everyone together more, which is always good for a team, especially one this new."
Lavery matched the team's form and produced what Turner believed to be one of the British GT rookie’s best qualifying performances of the season, placing fourth overall in GT4 and taking pole position for Pro-Am ahead of Sunday's two one-hour sprint races.
"That was an incredible effort," said Turner. "His pace was absolutely outstanding. That laid the foundations for the win, which to be fair was more than we expected given that we had to serve a 10-second success penalty for our win in Spa."
Lavery made a strong start to the first race and found himself in second place when two cars ahead of him collided at the first corner. He then spent much of his stint running second in GT4 and leading his class, despite significant pressure from a gaggle of cars behind him.
He pitted from third place, and as Turner took over, the only glitch of the weekend struck: the duo's Aston Martin Vantage GT4 went into park rather than neutral, costing them a vital couple of seconds in the pits. The BMW they'd been racing jumped ahead of them in the stops, and Turner rejoined in sixth.
"It was frustrating to see the BMW get ahead of us," said Turner. "But the pace was strong, so I was able to hold position and focus on moving forwards."
That's easier said than done at Snetterton, a circuit that rewards good defensive driving and doesn't offer many passing opportunities. "It's a good circuit, and it's quite technical, but it's one of those circuits that's easy to defend on," Turner explained.
While Turner crossed the line in sixth, he moved up to fourth after the two Pro-Am rivals ahead of him were both handed penalties, meaning he and Lavery were classified fourth overall and won the Pro-Am class. "To be honest, that's more than we expected with the success penalty, so we were delighted with that," said Turner.
Passing proved just as challenging in Race 2, where Turner started seventh in GT4 and fifth in Pro-Am.
"One of the Ginettas didn't start because of a fuel-pump issue, so we immediately made up a place," said Turner – and that car belonged to the Pro-Am championship leader. "My actual start wasn't great, and although I managed to hold position, I had to sort of re-overtake into Turn 1 to do it. After that, I was part of a train of five cars running nose-to-tail for the whole stint. It was very tight."
Turner was one of the earliest in the GT4 class to pit, handing back over to Lavery from sixth position – this time with no success penalty to serve. When the stops had all shaken out, Lavery found himself in fourth. "He made fairly easy progress to overtake the GBR Stratton Motorsport Aston Martin in third place, and then got his head down," said Turner.
Then, with ten minutes to go, Lavery produced a great piece of race-craft to overtake Ian Duggan for second place in GT4, as the Porsche moved off-line to let the GT3 leader through at Hamilton corner.
"That was an excellent move on the Porsche, which gave us P2 on the road and won us the Pro-Am class," said Turner. "As weekends go, it was as good as we could have hoped for, given where we were starting and the pit-stop penalty we had in Race 1. Of course I’m happy with two more wins and an overall podium!"
Those two wins give Turner and Lavery a comfortable 20-point cushion at the top of the GT4 Pro-Am standings, with only Round 7 at Donington Park (5–6 September) and Brands Hatch (26–27 September) still to come.
This run of strong results has also turned Turner, Lavery and Grange Racing by FSR into genuine title challengers for the overall GT4 class, having amassed 98.5 points — just 7.5 points behind the leading MK Racing Aston Martin crew of Jessica Hawkins and Will Orton.
Turner's next outing is at Donington Park, for the next round of the British GT Championship in the first weekend of September.