New British GT squad Forsetti Motorsport impressively won on its debut thanks to its teenage driver pairing, but instant success shouldn’t be a surprise
ED HARDY
In the Oulton Park media centre, a colleague gave a hysterical laugh when hearing of the GT4 winners from British GT’s opening round. It was the sudden realisation that he is older than both drivers’ ages combined – and my colleague isn’t exactly ‘old’. On a wet track, an unfazed Jamie Day, 18, and Mikey Porter, 16, comfortably won from pole to give Forsetti Motorsport a victory on its series debut. While many of their olders rivals in more established teams spun off a tight and slippery circuit, the Forsetti boys kept it within the white lines to show extreme maturity.
“They’re mega,” says Forsetti’s driver coach Matt George. “Obviously super young, but we’ve done a lot of days on track. They’re like two little sponges: they take in all the information, digest it and pull it out of the bag when they need to.”
A lot of that maturity stems from their team, a Snetterton-based outfit that showed fearlessness in placing two teenagers in the same car. Forsetti is a new organisation, one born last November, yet on British GT’s opening weekend it generally operated like a well-oiled machine, with a victory in race one and double podium in the second hour-long contest.
“The framework for the team to succeed is there,” says technical director Joe Holloway. “The cars are quick, the drivers are very strong, the results will come. But we’re focused on a framework for the whole championship – not just a win here and there. The big ones are the three-hour races and they are what we need to execute correctly. We’ve targeted a very ambitious first year.”
It seems like Forsetti has every chance to achieve what it hopes to with British GT – which “is the title”, as George puts it. But that should come as no surprise. From the offset, Forsetti has operated like a frontrunning outfit with a clear vision of how a team should be built. Holloway first became technical director following time as a Formula 1 mechanic, George – the holder of five GT4 lap records – was appointed driver coach after being “sold a dream”, while William Daniels, who has previously worked for series giant Barwell Motorsport, was appointed as its race engineer.
Forsetti was intent on hiring personnel who had the know-how of what it takes to compete at the front, which was evident at Oulton. A slightly mistimed pitstop that caused
