Oulton Park International Circuit, home track for British GT Championship title contender Seb Morris, will be the venue for the long-awaited opening two rounds of the 2017 season on Easter Monday, 17 April, and the Welshman has his sights set on one thing – podium silverware.
As the venue for the Marford, Wrexham 21-year-old’s maiden endurance racing win last year with team-mate Rick Parfitt Jnr, the undulating Cheshire track holds extremely fond memories for the duo who are back for a major title push in Team Parker Racing’s No.31 Bentley Continental GT3 car.
During the recent championship launch ‘Media Day’ test at Snetterton in Norfolk, Morris – who has attracted fresh sponsorship for his second season in British GT from new partners Ast Transport Branding and SaxonAir, with the addition of logistical assistance from Eddie Stobart – laid down a strong marker with the fastest time of all.
That said, the BRDC Superstar and MSA Team UK racer is well aware the full picture of the relative competitiveness of each GT3 entry won’t be fully clear until the opening qualifying session of the season on Saturday, 15 April.
“Obviously, I’m really looking forward to Oulton and the start of the season”, said Morris, “We’re all prepared, Rick [Parfitt Jnr] has had more testing this year and is looking good and we’ve worked on the car and made some changes. Everything is going in the right direction, although we haven’t been given the BOP [Balance of Performance] for the Bentley yet so we need to be a bit cautious.”
Last season, after four years in single-seater competition in Formula Renault, BRDC Formula 4 and GP3, Morris made a huge impact in GT racing by ending his maiden campaign third in the standings along with Parfitt Jnr, the duo sharing one win and five other podiums. Impressively, Morris became the man to beat in qualifying with four pole position starts from the seven race meetings.