Steller Lead The Way After Sparkling Oulton Park Opener
A win in race one and a third place after a red flag interrupted race two provided a near perfect start to the 2022 Intelligent Money British GT Championship for the #42 Steller Motorsport Audi R8 LMS GT4 effort over the easter weekend at Cheshire’s Oulton Park.
Crewed by Richard Williams and Sennan Fielding, the weekend started well and just got better for the Steller Motorsport GT4 class effort.
Pole position for the first race of the double header weekend was scored on Saturday by Richard Williams with Sennan Fielding coming within half a tenth of snatching pole for Race 2 from Aston Martin factory Driver Darren Turner.
Both races took place on Easter Monday with race one seeing the Steller pairing in dominant form, Williams powering away in the lead of the race
He would pit from the lead but a mistake in the pit stop saw Fielding forced into serving a Stop-Go penalty, emerging with work to do but catching and passing ex-GT4 Champion Ross Wylie with time to spare – The Steller Audi finishing a comfortable 5 seconds clear for the win.
Race two on Monday afternoon would be a disjointed affair – But Fielding would again put the Audi into the lead, fending off the attentions of the hugely experienced Darren Turner until a mid-race Red Flag interrupted proceedings after a heavy rain shower saw a number of GT3 cars off the road.
The delay saw the racing advantage of the leading pair evaporate for the race start with Richard Williams installed for the restart with a massive task in hand – not only would he have to defend the lead, but he would also have to try to offset the pitstop ‘tariffs’ that the team would otherwise have served in their mandatory driver change stop (the cars restated post red flag with second drivers installed) – the target a massive 24 seconds!
Williams though got stuck in straight away and stretched the lead rapidly. At the flag he came home 16 seconds clear of the GT4 field – but not enough to retain what would have been a well-deserved double win, the Steller Audi third, but after two rounds of the British GT Championship Steller leave the North West venue as leaders of the Drivers, Teams and GT4 Silver Cup.
Richard Williams:
“What a weekend! The car was amazing. Oulton Park is one of the most challenging tracks in Europe and the car just felt planted every time we went out.
Sennan Fielding:
As always with motorsport you’ll come away thinking of the “what might have beens” rather than what has been achieved! I’m giving myself the room though to celebrate the win and the Championship lead – and to let the guys at Steller know just what an amazing job they all have done.”
Max Daymond – Technical Director:
“The very best news of all is just how competitive the Audi is – The preparation that the team put in made a big difference and allowed Richard and Sennan to push as hard as they could all weekend.