Josh Rowledge – British GT Championship – Rnd 5 – Spa-Francorchamps
Round five of the 2024 British GT championship was the annual European ‘away day’ round which this year took place at the world-famous Spa-Francorchamps.
EDGE driver Josh Rowledge was hoping for a change in fortunes after what has been a very difficult start to 2024 whilst the balance of performance on the new Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo has made it very difficult to put a run of results together.
His prayers seemed to be answered as in mixed conditions during testing the car seemed very competitive in what was difficult conditions and they felt positive going into the weekend’s qualifying and race.
Qualifying would be a hotly contested event, especially in the Pro class, with so many top-level drivers, cars and teams all wanting a prestigious pole position at Spa. Rowledge performed impeccably with a 6th best time in the pro-class, which was the top performing Aston Martin in the field. This was a fantastic result for such a young driver, against much more experienced opposition & outlines the talent & potential Josh possesses.
In the race a first lap red flag, and resulting barrier damage repair, resulted in a shortened race time of one hour and 16 minutes instead of the allotted two hours. This led to a frantic and close race as both driver stints were nearly halved and tactics and strategy came into play even more than usual.
The Blackthorn motorsport team waited a couple of laps extra than most of the field before pitting in the hope of maybe benefiting from an incident on the circuit but it didn’t quite work out and they actually lost a couple of places in the pits. However, Rowledge battled back to P6 overall which was P2 in the silver/am class which was their first class podium of the season.
Following the race Rowledge said:
“After what’s been a challenging start to the season so far it was really nice to feel more on a level playing field and show what the Aston is capable of. Personally, I was extremely pleased with my performance in qualifying and the race was a very solid finish and nice to have a class podium aswell. I really hope this level of performance can continue at the next round at Snetterton. Thanks as always go to my sponsors, the team and EDGE Sporting Management for their continuous support.”
There is a couple of weeks to go before the British GT Circus heads to Snetterton in Norfolk for Round 6 of the championship.
Results – Q- P5 (P1 in Class) / Race – P6 Overall (P2 in Class)