Century Motorsport’s Tom Oliphant has been crowned the 2015 Michelin Ginetta GT4 Supercup champion with a pair of podium finishes at the season finale at Brands Hatch GP.
Oliphant’s success marks his and the team’s first Supercup title, while the team also secured vice-champion’s honours in the Teams Championship and the AM Class Championship with Osamu Kawashima.
The accolades came in a weekend in which the team entered the largest entry in Supercup history with six cars – regular trio Oliphant, Kawashima and Ollie Jackson joined by team GT Cup regulars Steve Fresle and Ruben Anakhasyan, as well as Formula Ford 1600 Pre-90 champion Matt Cowley.
After narrowly being denied the title in the weekend’s opening race, in which he maintained second from start-to-finish, Oliphant produced the same result in a nail-biting second race of the weekend to be crowned champion.
Bringing a season to a close with a hard-fought fourth place finish in the season closer, Oliphant’s title success came courtesy of eight race wins and a total of 21 podium finishes across the season, including a remarkable 17 in a row over the second half of the season.
Ollie Jackson’s maiden Supercup season came to a close with a hat-trick of top six finishes across the Brands weekend meanwhile. Bouncing back from a tough qualifying session, Jackson climbed up to sixth in the opener, before securing his ninth and tenth top five finishes of the season to cement his top eight championship finish.
Osamu Kawashima headed into the weekend with an outside shot of AM class glory, but a contact-induced race one retirement confirmed his vice-champion status, with the Japanese racer then showing his fighting spirit on Sunday to battle to fourth in class in race three, narrowly missing out on adding to his sixteen class podiums this year.
After a difficult start to the weekend, GT racing debutant Matt Cowley went on show good pace for someone with such little experience. His best finish of the weekend was thirteenth in race two.
Ruben Anakhasyan was also making his Supercup debut, and the Russian racer was immediately amongst the front-runners in the AM class, with only some mistakes on Sunday stopping him adding to a fourth place in class in his maiden race on Saturday afternoon.
Steve Fresle was making his second Supercup appearance meanwhile after racing in the corresponding meeting twelve months ago, with the GT Cup regular acquitting himself well across the weekend with a pair of top five class finishes in the most competitive class entry of the season.
Tom Oliphant – #15:
“It’s absolutely fantastic, words can’t describe the feeling of winning the championship. The effort that everybody has put in within the team has been incredible, not one minute has gone by that we haven’t tried to win. The car has been impeccable all season and this shows if you put the hard work and dedication in you get the rewards. I’m over the moon, I’ll remember this moment forever.”
Ollie Jackson – #48:
“It’s been a bit of a disappointing weekend, I feel like we’ve had the pace to get better results than we have and ultimately the luck just hasn’t been with us. The team have given me a fantastic car all season with a 100% reliability rate and I’ve really enjoyed the season both on track and off track. Tom and the team deserve their championship success, they’ve really earnt it.”
Osamu Kawashima – #11:
“It was a hard start to the weekend with the contact, but the team have been a huge help to me and we’ve kept pushing to get sixth and fourth in class. I’m very, very happy with the results this season, to be crowned vice-champion is amazing, so thank you so much to the team.”
Matt Cowley – #17:
“It was all a big learning curve for me this weekend and I feel like we showed we had some good pace out there at points. Competing in GT’s is completely different to what I’ve done before and I’ve really enjoyed the challenge of getting to grips with the car. The team have been brilliant, especially getting the car perfect again after the accident on Friday.”
Ruben Anakhasyan – #88:
“It’s been a frustrating weekend with a lot of mistakes. It was tough from Friday with the red flags meaning we didn’t get enough track time, but the pace was not too bad across the races I just didn’t put it all together in one go. It’s been an interesting experience, it’s completely different to GT Cup and I’ve enjoyed it.”
Steve Fresle – #36:
“Friday’s testing was difficult, with so many red flags in the first session and then getting hit off in the second, so that put me on the backfoot. There were a few mistakes in the races, but the final race was fantastic, really good fun. The main reason to come here was to celebrate with Tom and the team though, they really deserve their success and it’s made the weekend for me.”
Nathan Freke – Team Principal, Century Motorsport:
“It’s just mega really! Nothing is certain in motorsport, but we came into this weekend very confident we could win the championship. Tom did great job all weekend and probably would have been on pole from qualifying if he hadn’t been let down by the power steering belt. He’s put in a great performance all year; he’s well liked around the paddock and is a very worthy champion. I’m a bit gutted for Ollie in the last race as I thought it was his time for a win. He easily had the pace for a podium if not a win this weekend. Osamu’s weekend was a bit difficult being knocked off in the first race. But he fought back in the next two races to secure second in the AM championship, when up against Colin White is a great result for him as a newcomer to the championship. It’s clear that Matt Cowley has got talent, but his weekend got off to the worst possible start on Friday. From there apart from a few minor mishaps he showed good pace in the races and I think if we get the opportunity to work with him again with some more track time we can make a lot of progress. Steve and Ruben suffered badly on Friday loosing a lot of valuable track time due to red flags. Both of them made big improvements throughout the weekend improving their lap times and should be really pleased with themselves.”