Having elected to take part in the opening rounds of the European GT4 Cup at
Silverstone, Beechdean Motorsport secured its first win with its new Aston Martin N24 in the second race of the weekend.
Team owner Andrew Howard finished twelfth in the first race after a spin while running strongly towards the front of the field, while team-mate Jamie Smyth then took the wheel for the second of the weekend.
A fine start saw him climb from fifth on the grid into second place by the end of lap one, and despite briefly slipping back to third, he held second place before suffering brake failure just five minutes from the end.
Despite that, he was able to nurse the car to the flag in second place but then secured victory when the race winning Aston Martin of Klaus Engelhorn was given a 15 second penalty for an infringement on track.
"This was a great end to the weekend after the problems we had on Friday and a win for the team in our first
FIA attempt is just brilliant," Smyth said. "During the race the car was a bit difficult in the slow corners and was understeering quite a lot, but I had built up a bit of a gap after the frantic start so it was a case of maintaining my position and bringing the car home. A big thanks to all the team for their effort this weekend."
Howard was equally pleased with a first win with the Aston Martin after electing to do down the GT4 route at the start of the year and said the success justified the decision taken to run the N24 this season.
"The FIA event this weekend has proved the quality of GT4 and justified our investment in the Championship," he said. "To be in a position to race cars on an equal footing, in such a high profile event such as this, is just fantastic. To take a win is the icing on the cake."
