TF Sport launched its 2015 campaign at Kent’s globally-renowned Brands Hatch Indy circuit as part of the Avon Tyres British GT Championship Media Day on Wednesday (25 March) and Team Director, Tom Ferrier, gives his thoughts ahead of the season-opening round at Oulton Park over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend (4-6 April).
“For me, TF Sport had an impressive debut season in 2014 and, finishing runner-up in the British GT4 standings with Andrew Jarman and Devon Modell was particularly remarkable,” said Ferrier.
“The team is set to return to the UK’s premier GT racing arena for the second consecutive season, with Jarman and International GT Open race winner, Jody Fannin, sharing a Eurostar-backed Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3, and experienced duo, Derek Johnston and Matt Bell, in a second Steel Decking-liveried racer.
It has certainly been an easier winter than last year, which was all about setting up the team in readiness for a full-time British GT campaign and sporadic appearances in other high-profile sportscar racing contests.
Since the end of the 2014 season, my highly skilled engineers and mechanics have stripped the cars back to the shell and re-built them, and we have signed two very strong driver pairings, which bodes well for the year ahead.
The deal to sign both Derek (Johnston) and Matt (Bell) was finalised at the end of November, and it was nice going into the Christmas break knowing that we had something lined-up, because it’s rarely like that.
Then we started working on a deal with Andrew (Jarman) and Jody (Fannin). This was finalised mid-January, so we were done and dusted with our drivers and cars some time ago and that’s always a very nice position to be in, allowing plenty of time to prepare for the season ahead.
This season, the competition in British GT is going to be very tough, as there a lot of experienced drivers who have been doing it for many years now and there is more quality and depth on the field.
If you look at last year, there was a top eight that were very good and this year there will be a top 15 separated by only a few tenths during qualifying. Come race day, it will be bumper-to-bumper all the way and the priority will be finishing and scoring consistent points.
We didn’t have a GT3 benchmark last year with it being our maiden season, so with the arrival of Derek and Matt, who are both very experienced in GT racing, we have been able to move forward a great deal, confident that we are going in the right direction.
What we have done over the winter has been hugely beneficial. Obviously we would have liked to have done some more testing, but the financial restraints always limit that, but we will see if what we have done comes to fruition at Oulton Park’s season-opener.
We’d like to come away from Cheshire with both cars scoring a decent amount of points, as it’s a hard place to start the season due to its tight and twisty nature and more traffic due to an increased GT4 entry. If both cars breach the top six and one of them scales the podium, I’ll be over the moon.
I’d love to be in the hunt for the British GT Teams’ Championship and I know everybody involved with TF Sport are focused on that goal too, since I promised to take everybody to Las Vegas if we win it!”
The 2015 Avon Tyres British GT Championship will burst back into life at Cheshire’s picturesque Oulton Park over Easter (4-6 April).
For more on TF Sport, visit the official www.tfsport.co.uk website, ‘like’ the team’s Facebook page of follow @OfficialTFSport on Twitter.