PODIUM FINISH AT BRANDS HATCH

8 August 2017

Jon Barnes and Mark Farmer secured a hard-fought podium on Sunday (7 August 2017) as the British GT Championship visited Brands Hatch for the penultimate round of the year, while TF Sport teammates Derek Johnston and Jonny Adam finished fourth, shadowing the #11 Aston Martin across the line.

With an upgraded ‘B’ Spec engine fitted prior to the weekend, Barnes and Farmer showed a big upturn in pace, dominating for most of the two free practice sessions on Saturday.

Unfortunately, a heavy rain shower prior to qualifying meant that both drivers had to re-learn the soaking wet track. Farmer did a solid job to finish 4th fastest in the Am session, albeit 1.6 seconds off pole-sitter Jon Minshaw’s pace.
Barnes then set the 3rd fastest time in the Pro session and ended up fastest Aston Martin driver - outpacing his team mate, factory Aston Martin driver and Le Mans 24 hours winner Jonny Adam who lined up in 7th.
With qualifying times combined, the two-hour race would see Farmer line up third in the #11 Aston Martin Vantage GT3, with Johnston sixth on the grid in the sister #1 machine. 


A clean start saw Farmer maintain position and over the next few laps he began to apply pressure to the #24 Aston Martin ahead - until on lap ten he encountered traffic, sliding wide and dropping to fifth position.

Farmer got his head back down, closing up on the pack ahead, passing the #6 Lamborghini for fourth and then gaining a further position as the #24 ran into mechanical issues.

At the pitstop, Barnes took over the #11 Aston, but crucially he lost 6 seconds in the pits with an electronic issue which prevented the engine from firing up - meaning he exited in third. Despite his best efforts over the remainder of the race, he was unable to snatch back second position from Sam Tordoff’s #6 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini.

Johnston meanwhile ran sixth early on before handing over to Adam who emerged from the pits in fourth. Adam shadowed Barnes to the flag to finish in fourth position.

Tom Ferrier, TF Sport Director
“Third and fourth, not bad, we’ll take that. A good drive from Mark and Jon, while qualifying hurt Derek and Jonny today for the race. Still, they are happy with the car after a few difficult races and that means we head to the last race of the season at Donington in a positive frame of mind.”

Jon Barnes, PRO driver #11 
"Mark did a great stint to recover to third position after dropping down a bit at the start. He pushed hard and when the Lambos ran into tyre trouble or whatever their issues were, it was mega to be in P2 ahead of the stop. We had a small issue in the pits that cost us some time – we had to cycle the power four times - so we lost 6 seconds there which would have put us easily second. Just a shame we couldn’t get past the Lambo for that second position. One race left, we’ll try and get another good result there."

Mark Farmer, AM driver #11
"A great start really, but then in traffic, I had contact with one of the GT4 cars and that cost me with Rick (Parfitt) got through and then (Liam) Griffin hit me into Clearways and that was way after the traffic incident. So, then I got my head down, caught and passed the Lambos, so handed over in a strong position to Jon to secure the podium."


For more information visit Jon's website at www.jonbarnes.com
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ENDS

© Jon Barnes Racing 2023