Porsche wins British GT finale, but Attard is champion

Phil Keen and Jon Minshaw won the final round of the British GT Championship at Donington Park after a dramatic two-hour showdown in which the title was decided in favour of Marco Attard.

Keen moved the Trackspeed Porsche 911 GT3 R ahead of long-time leader Michael Caine, sharing the Motorbase Performance Aston Martin Vantage GT3 with Ahmad al Harthy, with 13 laps remaining.

The Aston crew needed to win the race to take the crown but Caine slipped to fourth with braking issues. That handed the title advantage to the Attard/Alexander Sims Barwell-run Ecurie Ecosse BMW Z4, which had been ruled out of the race after only 10 laps with a gearbox problem.

Following Keen to the flag was the FF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia of Gary Eastwood and stand-in co-driver Ollie Hancock.

Eastwood had handed the car over to his co-driver from fourth place after the opening 50 minutes, and Hancock chased the Porsche to the line, finishing less than three seconds adrift.

One of the drives of the race came from Matt Bell, who was sharing his United Autosports Audi R8 LMS ultra with Mark Patterson.

Patterson had suffered contact early on, which broke a rear toe-link, but Bell overcame the problem to surge from sixth position at the start of his stint to claim the final podium spot.

In GT4, the fifth-placed Beechdean Aston Martin Vantage of Jake Giddings and Ross Wylie did enough to claim the crown despite a late stop for a splash-and-dash.

Title rivals Devon Modell and Andrew Jarman's TF Sport Aston Martin took second, behind the Rick Parfitt Jr/Tom Oliphant Century Ginetta G55.