WITH only two rounds left in this year's British GT Championship and out of the title hunt, Northwich driver Ian Loggie and co-driver Phil Keen have changed their car.
Out goes the stunning D2 liveried AMG GT3 Mercedes and in comes the Porsche 911 R GT3 (992).
As the 2 Seas Motorsport team are not in this year's title race, the decision was made to start planning for 2025.
With a test day on the Thursday and free practice through Saturday morning, the No6 Porsche looked to be showing decent pace, although not yet fully up to speed, but nevertheless was in the top five during these sessions.
The real acid test would come on Saturday afternoon as qualifying was upon them. With 15 minutes each for Loggie and Keen to set a combined time, things didn't quite go to plan.
The track had been slippery all day and this session was no different. Other teams were flying and managing the conditions well, but Ian and Phil had a stinker and had to settle for 15th on the grid.
2 Seas Motorsport teammates Kevin Tse and Max Goetze put their AMG GT3 Mercedes on the front row in second place, which was quite a contrast to the other side of the garage.
Sunday morning would see the 15-minute warm up take place in very wet conditions, but this inadvertently helped the No6 Porsche as what may have seemed an initial power deficit in the dry,didn’t appear to be there in the wet
No sooner had the rain came, it went, and by the time 1pm came, it was going to be a dry race.
Starting back on row eight was always going to be a challenge but with Loggie out first, it was game on.
After a decent start, the Porsche began picking off cars in front and seemed to be slowly improving – approaching the pit stop window, Ian was up to 7th, which was a brilliant drive, so with four new tyres and a huge tank of fuel, it was over to Phil Keen to keep pushing for places.
And that’s exactly what he did, gaining another two places to take a brilliant fifth in the new Porsche’s first competitive outing.
The last round of the championship is at Brands Hatch in three weeks’ time.
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