Shaun Balfe and co-driver Adam Smalley miss out on overall British GT title in final round at Brands Hatch
A last-day shot at glory for Fulbeck’s Shaun Balfe and co-driver Adam Smalley ended in disappointment at Brands Hatch on Sunday.
The duo headed to Kent still with a mathematical chance of taking the British GT title in their Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo.
“Free practice had gone fairly well, we were looking at getting the set-up to suit qualifying and we were setting times capable of making the top three,” said Balfe.
Up against the Barwell Lamborghini duos of Rob and Ricky Collard, and Sandy Mitchell and Alex Martin for the title, Balfe knew the importance of the short qualifying session.
But with less than half of the out lap completed, Balfe suddenly ground to a halt.
“No warning, it just stopped,” he said, as a failed crank sensor had left Balfe stranded.
The car was towed back to the pitlane with the crew working frantically to fix the problem and get Smalley out in his session.
Unfortunately their efforts came to nothing with neither driver recording a lap time, leaving them on the back row of the 14-car GT3 grid.
Third quickest in the morning warm-up was already highlighting what might have been but, with Balfe starting, it would be a tall order to get to the front of the field.
From the start he had settled in 12th, chasing Mike Price’s Mercedes, which then became a four-car train for 10th.
For a couple of laps he explored moves on Price before being let through and then he chased down Andrew Howard’s Aston Martin.
Although his next quest was Mark Smith’s McLaren, the initial four-second gap soon came down, and with 23 laps gone, they were split by just 0.214 secs.
Three laps later he took a look at Paddock Hill Bend and then nosed ahead at Westfield. But having exited just slightly wide, Smith managed to squeeze back down the inside.
The pressure continued and five laps later Balfe tried again at Graham Hill Bend.
“If I was going to try a 50/50 move I decided to try at a slow speed corner,” he said. “There was a slight touch, but we were so much quicker than him.”
The safety car had been out earlier for a couple of laps, but from a full course yellow after 32 laps, it became another safety car intervention, with Balfe now running ninth.
The race was still under caution at half distance and up to the pitstops, where Smalley was having to serve a 10-second success penalty before rejoining.
Lap 42 and the race was live again with Smalley still ninth. But only four laps later it was caution again, finally going live for the final 11 minutes.
They finally took the flag ninth, having had little time to progress, but were promoted to eighth after a post-race penalty was issued.
“A disappointing weekend, but third in the Championship and Silver AM champions, we haven’t had a bad year,” said Balfe.
“We have had various rolls of the dice, but it was missing the qualifying that settled it.”
Meanwhile, Tom Balfe was out for the final time this season in the Ginetta Academy. He started race one from fifth on the grid and held his place on the opening lap.
He was pushing hard to stay in touch with the lead quartet, when two cars went off at Druids Hairpin and brought a premature end to the race.
Sixth into Druids at the start of race two, he was under some initial pressure from Mike West. Having consolidated his place he began to challenge Paul Thomas for fifth and by the end of lap three, he was through.
He gained another place when Luke Shaw pitted, but was still 13 seconds away from a podium finish. He finished his season with fifth again in the third and final race of the weekend.