Basingstoke ObserverAndwell’s Nick Halstead scored a superb overall podium finish as the British GT Championship kicked off with a pair of action-packed races at Oulton Park on Easter Monday.
Fox Motorsport duo Nick and Jamie Stanley equalled the best finish in the GT3 category by the team, by finishing third in the season-opening race and added more points with a solid performance in Race Two.
Having finished second in the GT4 Pro-Am class in 2021, Nick and Jamie arrived at the Cheshire track ready to begin the team’s first full-season campaign in the faster GT3 category and set top-six times in Pro-Am in free practice.
Nick qualified a magnificent fourth in Pro-Am for the opening race and charged forwards in the overall order as time moved towards the mandatory pit window near the midway point of the hour-long race.
Slick pitwork from the Fox team allowed Jamie to emerge in a strong position and the Milton Keynes-based driver then fought a determined rearguard action to ensure third spot was secured.
That result means that Fox have finished on either the class or overall podium in every event they’ve ever fielded a GT3 entry in; the last such result coming in 2016.
From eighth in Pro-Am on the Race-Two grid, Jamie’s life was made altogether harder when he was forced to take to the grass on the opening lap to avoid becoming involved in contact that had happened right in front of him.
Dropping to the back of the 30-car field, Jamie rallied strongly to rise to 14th by the time a mid-race red flag - amid a sudden rainshower - halted action with several cars suffering incidents.
Race organisers decided at this point that Nick and Jamie’s five-second success penalty - incurred as a result of finishing third in the earlier encounter - was not to be taken in the pits, but instead to be added to their car’s total time post-race.
While Nick continued the McLaren’s relentless rise to cross the line fifth in Pro-Am, the time penalty meant he and Jamie were classified sixth instead.
The pair hold sixth in the overall standings and fifth in Pro-Am with one round of seven completed while Fox Motorsport are sixth in the Teams’ points.
Nick Halstead said: “It’s been fantastic to get on the podium in my first weekend in a GT3 car, and I’m especially pleased with the speed I’ve had. I’ve been on the pace of all but one of the other Am drivers, and that’s despite not having tested the McLaren here at Oulton, so that’s a huge positive too. I think we could have done even better. I lost a little bit of time in qualifying in traffic and without that then maybe the 0.3s gap to pole wouldn’t have been there, and I’m pretty frustrated about being held up on the restart in Race Two and losing touch with the cars ahead of me straight away. I just want to get to Silverstone now because we really have a strong package underneath us.”
The championship continues at Silverstone with a single 500km race on May 8.
