Keen Takes Snetterton Race 1 Victory After Penalty

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Phil Keen and Jon Minshaw won the first of two British GT races at Snetterton on Sunday in the No. 33 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 after a post-race penalty.

The controversy started around 20 minutes before the end of the one-hour race, when Joe Osborne passed Keen for the lead, but the AmDTuning.com driver shunted the Lamborghini off track in the process.

The AmD-run BMW Z4 GT3 was awarded a drive-through penalty from the lead near the end of the race but Osborne didn’t serve it. However, it was immediately added onto his time at the end of the race, demoting Osborne and Lee Mowle to fifth.

Keen was the leader after the pit stops until the manoeuvre from Osborne. The penalty gives the No. 33 Barwell crew its second win of the season and moves both drivers to the top of the points standings.

“[AmD] had the benefit of new tires so caught us up really quickly,” Keen said. “Then I ended up getting boxed in through the traffic when Joe was right with me; maybe he slightly misjudged the speed and tagged me.

“It was one of those things and he didn’t do it on purpose. He did a good enough job for the team last weekend [at the Total 24 Hours of Spa] so I’ll let him off.”

TF Sport took second position with its No. 11 Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 that won last time out at Spa-Francorchamps. Jon Barnes finished 0.427 seconds behind Keen, and co-drove with Mark Farmer.

The Bentley Continental GT3 of Team Parker Racing’s Seb Morris and Rick Parfitt Jr. completed the amended podium.

Jonny Adam put the other TF Sport car into the top four, ahead of Osborne after his penalty.

It was a tremendous effort from Adam and Derek Johnston in the No. 17 Aston Martin, as the pair recovered from a first-lap collision with Alasdair McCaig’s McLaren 650S GT3.

The Black Bull Ecurie Ecosse entry was sent into the garage before the midway point, but TF Sport managed to hang on to finish five seconds down on the winner.

Ciaran Haggerty and Sandy Mitchell were victorious in GT4, in the No. 59 McLaren 570S GT4’s first series win, and restoring some success for Ecurie Ecosse.

Haggerty held off a late-race charge from Ross Gunn, who makes a one-off return to the Beechdean AMR GT4 squad for this weekend. The gap at the line to the No. 407 Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT4 was just 0.360 seconds.

Matty Graham took his Generation AMR Macmillan Racing car to the final podium position.

Alex Reed had started from the class pole but his Ginetta G55 GT4 soon dropped back. Joey Foster took it to fourth at the line, clear of Mike Robinson’s PMW World Expo Racing/Optimum Motorsport Ginetta which led the standings before Snetterton.

Race 2 will take the green flag at 4:05 p.m. local time, again for a 60-minutes. It will be the penultimate round of the season.

RESULTS: Race 1

Jake Kilshaw

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.