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Aston Martin at the British GT Media Day

MKH Racing

Former Aston works driver Stuart Hall Returns to British GT With MKH Racing. Stuart has a long history with Aston Martin, his first race for AMR being the 2009 24-Hours of Le Mans in the DBR1-2 prototype. The association with Aston has continued, including an LMGTE Am class win as a factory driver in the 2013 World Endurance Championship. This season he will race a GT4 Vantage in British GT with Peter Montague for MKH Racing, a team founded by the pair.

We caught up with them briefly at Silverstone during the British GT media day. This testing day launches the season and provides an opportunity to get a close look at the cars and teams in a more relaxed setting than a race weekend. Stuart’s career path is a typical one – he is from a racing family (his father raced touring cars in the 1980s) and started karting as a youngster. That led to single seaters until a lack of money meant a switch to sports cars.

As well as racing modern endurance cars, Hall is part of the team that runs Roald Goethe’s ROFGO Collection of 38 Gulf-liveried heritage cars (see rofgo.com). This has involved him in a lot of historic racing, including three victories in the Monaco Historic Grand Prix. Those wins were in McLaren F1 cars, but the Aston connection has remained strong with the ROFGO collection containing a DBR9, Vantage GT2, Aston Martin R16 LMP1, Vantage GTE and AMR-One.

He is also responsible for coaching Roald Goethe’s son Oliver, who is a Red Bull Junior driver currently contesting the FIA F2 championship - which was the reason why Stuart had just returned from the Melbourne Grand Prix when we chatted to him at Silverstone.

Hall’s amateur co-driver and MKH team co-founder Peter Montague has previously raced Astons in GT Cup and the AMOC Intermarque Championship. Their striking black and purple AMR Vantage will contest the new Endurance Cup - this is for GT4 cars taking part in the four British GT races of two and three hours in length, omitting the one-hour ‘sprint’ rounds. Grantham-based MKH will also run a couple of Ginetta Junior cars in the British GT support series.

Stuart Hall (left) and Peter Montague

Blackthorn optimistic for GT3 title challenge

We also managed to have a few words with Claude Bovet, team principal of Blackthorn, and amateur driver Giacomo Petrobelli, who will partner Jonny Adam again in this season’s GT3 class. Last year saw some good performances by the pairing, notably a second at Donington, but consistency was lacking.

However, as Giacomo pointed out, the team was new last year, as was the Evo version of the car. In fact the Evo kit wasn’t fitted until after the opening race at Oulton Park; so there was a big learning curve to ascend, both for the team in working together and in its understanding of the car. He seems confident that having gained experience last season, the team will be able to set up a highly competitive car.

Giacomo also made the point in the press conference that this season’s new Pirelli tyre is something all the teams will have to learn. He said it feels stiffer than the old version and while lower pressures might make it last longer as a result, the cars could move around more.

New Livery and Co-Driver for Beechdean

Tom Wood joins former champion Andrew Howard in the #97 Beechdean GT3 Vantage, replacing Jessica Hawkins. Tom raced an Aston in the GT4 class in 2018 and has been focused on racing in Europe since. He is also involved the Aston Martin Unleashed track day programme. Returning to British GT he will find himself in a blue Vantage, rather than the familiar green. The livery change reflects the sponsorship and ice cream product link-up between Beechdean and SIDES.

British GT Race Calendar 2025