British GT: Loggie/Gounon and Gough/Wrigley win second race in Oulton Park
10th April 20232 Seas Ian Loggie and Jules Gounon alongside Race Lab’s Ian Gough and Tom Wrigley won the British GT’s second race at Oulton Park despite the wet conditions.
How the race unfolded…
After one formation lap, the second-race pole sitter, Gounon got the race underway and maintained the lead into the opening corners.
As the pack blasted through into the turn four Island Bend and into the turn five Shell Oils Corner, Marciello ventured around the outside line of hairpin and moved up to second place after Century Motorsport’s Dan Harper had a snap from his rear tyres under acceleration.
Enduro Motorsport’s Marcus Clutton soon peeled into the pit lane, earlier than the expected GT3 pit window, to retire from the race as the Briton’s McLaren was missing his front bonnet.
After the first 10 minutes, Gounon remained out in the lead ahead of RAM Racing’s Raffaele Marciello and Garage 59’s Marvin Kirchhoefer who were in second and third respectively as Harper fell to fourth.
The gap between the front two drivers was two seconds but it continued to drop down between the two. On lap eight, with just over 45 minutes left, the gap was down to half a second.
Marciello nearly found his car in the barrier with just over 40 minutes left to go. As the Swiss driver and Gounon overtook GT4 traffic around Island Bend, but the trailing Mercedes ate up too much of the inside kerb and lost control of his Mercedes. As he skidded along the wet grass verge, towards the turn five hairpin, the Swiss Mercedes was able to just avoid the tyre barrier and rotate his car around to continue on.
Century Motorsport’s Lewis Plato was bounced out of the Knickerbrook chicane by his GT4 field and into the tyre barrier in the run-off area. Fortunately, the BMW driver was able to reverse out of the barrier and continue on.
At the same time, prior to the accident, the photographer who was stationed at that point dove out of the way in time and was later seen snapping more pictures.
The pit lane became very busy at the halfway stage as the GT3 cars came into the pit lane, led by Gounon who swapped over for the defending champion, Ian Loggie. A lap later, Marciello pitted with 20 seconds remaining on the clock before his pit window closed in a bid to overcut Loggie.
When the RAM Mercedes returned to the circuit John Ferguson, who had swapped over with Marciello, found himself in the race lead while Loggie found himself down in second place.
Shortly after, the team manager for Ferguson’s Mercedes was called to the stewards.
Ferguson was issued with a one-second stop-and-go penalty for a fractionally short pit stop. This meant the RAM driver had to peel into the pit lane, with 20 minutes left to go, for a one-second stop before he continued on.
In turn, Ferguson’s forced stop allowed Loggie to inherit the race lead. Luckily for Ferguson, the Briton only lost one position when he returned to the wet circuit as he filtered in between Loggie and Garage 59’s Alex West.
In the last 20 minutes, a McLaren occupied the top three positions of the GT4 class, led by Race Lab’s Ian Gough and ahead of Optimum Motorsport’s Jack Brown and DTO Motorsport’s Aston Millar.
Podium (GT3):
- Ian Loggie/Jules Gounon, 2 Seas
- John Ferguson/Raffaele Marciello, RAM Racing
- Alex West/Marvin Kirchhoefer, Garage 59
Podium (GT4)
- Ian Gough/Tom Wringley, Race Lab
- Jack Brown/Charles Clark, Optimum Motorsport
- Aston Millar/Josh Rowledge, DTO Motorsport
That’s it for the article: British GT: Loggie/Gounon and Gough/Wringley win second race in Oulton Park!
What do you think of the first race of the season? Let us know in the comments!
Read more British GT here!
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- British GT: Loggie and Williams/Fielding win championship at Donington Decider
- 2022 British GT Championship: Spa-Francorchamps Preview
- British GT: 2022 Snetterton Preview
- Lotus becomes official safety car of British GT
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Hi, I’m Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion.
I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I’ve loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.
Kamron Kent
Hi, I'm Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion. I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I've loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.
