Rob celebrated his first British GT podium at Oulton Park in Cheshire (1-2 August 2020) with a second place, ending the weekend leading the Silver class standing with team-mate Sandy Mitchel.
The fast sweeps of Oulton Park circuit clearly suited the former BTCC racer as he took to the track in the BlackBull-supported Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3s.
Qualifying for race one was dominated by the ultra-light McLarens, with their Silver driver line-ups filling the top four slots on the grid. Rob secured a useful sixth place on the grid on his British GT debut, despite having to carry an extra 30kgs of ballast as he had been ‘upgraded’ by the British GT organisers from his actual FIA Bronze grade to Silver driver status.
Round 1
Rob used his BTCC experience to make a great start, going round the outside of Sam De Haan’s Mercedes at the first corner to slot into fifth place. After that the race became a high-speed train of cars all close to each other but unable to make a move around the tight confines of the Oulton Park track. Rob came into the pits in fifth place for the driver change with Sandy emerging in the same spot for his stint. A pit stop infringement penalty for the #10 TwoSeas McLaren moved them up to fourth, and Sandy was just about hanging onto the back of the #9 TwoSeas McLaren of Dean MacDonald for most of the race but just couldn’t get close enough to mount a challenge. Hence as predicted the super-light McLarens filled the top three overall positions with their young Silver driver crews.
Round 2
Rob's teammate Sandy nailed an impressive qually lap for race 2 putting the Lamborghini in second place on the front row of the grid alongside the other Barwell Motorsport Hurican piloted by Phil Keen and Adam Balon. The RAM Mercedes duo of Yelmer Buurman and Patrick Kujala were close behind on the second row of the grid.
Both Barwell motorsport Lamborhinis completed the driver change pit-stop in the positions they had started the race, leaving Rob to battle it out for first place in an inter-team fight with Adam Balon. Shortly after the pit stops had been completed however, the race was put under Safety Car conditions that remained in place until the end of the race, wiping out Rob's chance to race and challenge for the lead.
