Last weekend, James Nash and Gordon Shedden, who drive for Triple Eight Racing and Honda Racing respectively in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship, joined the almost thirty car strong three hour Avon Tyres British GT Championship race at Donington Park. Both made promising debuts and were immediately on the pace, with Nash winning the GT4 class in a Lotus Evora alongside Phil Glew.

Shedden, who has previously driven a GT2 Ferrari 430 for CRS Racing in endurance events, joined the Rosso Verde team, assisting in the absence of sportscar star, Allan Simonsen and driving a brand new Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 alongside series stalwart, Hector Lester.

Despite no track time in the car, Shedden posted respectable times throughout practice and in qualifying he took eleventh place with a time of 1:31.333, around a second off pole position, which was taken by former British Touring Car Championship star and current Porsche Carrera Cup GB title challenger, Stephen Jelley (Trackspeed Porsche).

Experiencing GT racing for the first time at Donington Park, Nash was fresh off the back of his maiden BTCC win at Rockingham the weekend before. Similarly to Shedden, practice and qualifying went smoothly for Nash, and the pairing with Glew seemed to work well, the pair taking pole in the GT4 class by over a tenth of a second.

Sunday brought rain, and as the cars lined-up on the grid, the race was declared wet. After a tricky set of opening laps that saw Shedden exchange places with the Chevron of Jordan Witt and the Ginetta G55 of Ian Stinton, the Honda touring car driver made his way up to seventh by the time he handed over to Lester for the first of the three mandatory pit stops.

Simialrly, Glew made a strong start and made his way up to tenth when he handed over to new boy Nash. Nash then fought back to fifteenth from twenty third place after the handover and did the same again in his second stint, which would see him take the flag in a fine thirteenth place overall, first in class and just five laps behind eventual victors Charles Bateman and Michael Lyons (Scuderia Vittoria Ferrari 458 Italia GT3).

“Taking a win in my first GT4 outing is perfect,” said Nash. “The team were great and Phil and I combined to make a really strong paring. It has really whet my appetite for GT racing and I was really pleased with my performance, unfortunately I didn’t set the fastest lap time in the car so I’ve unfinished business that I need to see too.”

Shedden had a tough race, but the Scotsman dug deep, taking back ten places and handing over to co-driver Lester to finish a fine sixth overall in a car that had never competed in a race before the weekend; a considerable achievement by anyone’s standards.

Both drivers enjoyed their respective races, and hope to re-appear in further rounds of the championship, but not before this weekend’s BTCC event at Brands Hatch where both drivers are competing for titles.

Photo Credit: Jakob Ebrey

James Mappin is the editor-in-chief covering the British Touring Car Championship. You can contact him at james@btcccrazy.co.uk, on twitter @BTCCCrazy or on his personal twitter account @jamesmappin.