Pirelli has served as sole tyre supplier to the British GT Championship since 2016 and has announced its return for a fifth season in 2020 – with a pair of new-spec tyres. Competitors in the GT3 category will race on the Pirelli P Zero DHE tyre this season, a product that replaces the prior-generation DHD2. Cars in the slightly less powerful GT4 category will wear another new tyre, the Pirelli P Zero DHB, successor to the DH.
Garage equipment distributor Absolute Alignment has announced two partnerships with UK race teams in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) and British GT Championship. The company has become an Official Technical Partner to Power Maxed Racing in the BTCC, and will support Academy Motorsport’s Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT4 entries in British GT. The company supplies wheel alignment equipment to workshops of all sizes. Company director Chris Dear has been in the motor trade since 1996 and has commensurate in-depth product knowledge.
Garage equipment distributor Absolute Alignment has announced two partnerships with UK race teams in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) and British GT Championship. The company has become an Official Technical Partner to Power Maxed Racing in the BTCC, and will be supporting Academy Motorsport’s Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT4 entries in British GT.
Pirelli will supply the tyres for the British GT Championship’s blue-riband event: the Silverstone 500. With a single three-hour endurance race, this round features 50 per cent more racing than any other event and unique strategic opportunities for the teams, all of whom race on Pirelli P Zero tyres.
The Team Parker Racing Bentley Continental GT3 driven by Rick Parfitt Jr and Seb Morris and with Pirelli P Zero DHD tyres won the two-hour race at Rockingham in round two of the British GT Championship. Supplied with DH tyres, the Ginetta G55 of Will Tregurtha and Stuart Middleton won in the GT4 class – at 17 they represent the youngest pairing to ever win in British GT.
Pirelli will supply its P Zero to the 30 supercars of the British GT Championship grid at Rockingham for round two of the 2017 season. The two-hour endurance race takes place at the newest track on the British GT calendar, with the Northamptonshire circuit’s American-style banked oval providing a notable feature in the 1.94-mile International Super Sportscar Circuit layout. The oval forms the first corner, banked at seven degrees, after which comes a heavy braking zone onto a twisty infield section where tyres have to withstand continual braking and traction energy.
The Pirelli supported 2017 British GT Championship got underway at Oulton Park with two one-hour sprint races on Easter Monday, with a double victory for the #33 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 of Jon Minshaw and Phil Keen claimed in wet and the dry conditions. In GT4 the wins were shared by the McLaren 570S driven by Adam Balon and Adam Mackay and the Ginetta G55 of Alex Reed and David Pittard.
Phil Keen and Jon Minshaw claimed a double British GT win in their Lamborghini Huracan GT3 in the penultimate event of the Pirelli-equipped series at Snetterton. The results move Barwell Motorsport drivers Keen and Minshaw to the top of the drivers’ standings in the GT3 class with just one race remaining at Donington Park on September 10-11. The victory in race one came despite a clash with the BMW Z4 GT3 of Joe Osborne that sent the Lamborghini into a spin.
The British GT Championship remains open to Europe in a way seemingly at odds with just over half the UK, as it ventures to Spa-Francorchamps for the fifth event of the season. Though most of the British drivers won’t be as familiar with the Belgian circuit as the season’s UK tracks, Pirelli – in its first season exclusively supplying the championship – will supply a tyre, its P Zero DHC, that has completed many thousands of laps there at the Spa 24 Hours over recent seasons. Pirelli and its engineers will be at Spa on the Tuesday prior to the British GT races for the test day of the 2016 24 Hours, which takes place at the end of the month.
Pirelli’s exclusive supply deal with the British GT Championship enters its second round on the high-speed banked oval and twisty infield of Northamptonshire’s Rockingham circuit on 30-31 April. Record-breaking lap times were set on the new P Zero rubber at the season’s curtain-raiser at Brands Hatch, with Derek Johnston and Jonny Adam claiming victory and an early GT3 championship lead in their TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage GT3. Competition was fiercer, with Bentley, Lamborghini and BMW making it four different manufacturers in the top four in the race.
