Following on from a strong finish at Snetterton last month, the Generation Bentley Racing team was looking for a repeat performance at Spa-Francorchamps, rounds seven and eight of the British GT Championship.

Once again the team was hampered with bad luck and technical difficulties during both qualifying sessions on Friday. Steve Tandy managed 20th place on the grid for the first race with team-mate James Appleby starting 23rd for Saturday’s second 60-minute race.

Saturday’s opening race went well for the British duo. Steve, like the majority of the field, started from the pit lane following a late tire decision in drying conditions. From there he enjoyed a blinding stint going from 27th place to 12th making up valuable places before pitting and handing over to James.

Battling it out with Jonny Adam in the Aston in a close-fought affair, the pair caught and passed the BMW of Luke Hines. With James’s tyres going off on the last few laps he was then caught by the Ferrari of Aaron Scott and just managing to keep the Ferrari and the Aston of Richard Abra at bay, he brought the #2 Bentley Continental GT3 over the line in 11th place. A later amendment to the finishing positions meant that the team moved up to 10th and into the points.

Looking to build on the progress made in race one, James left the pit lane to make his way to the grid for the second one-hour race of the day. His confidence was unfortunately short lived as the 25 year old realised the power steering had failed on the formation lap.

Having to manhandle the car through both stints all the pair could do was try to keep the car on track and make no mistakes. A deployment of the safety car on lap five helped bring the field together and offered James a reprieve, as did a second safety car later in the race.

James handed over to Steve in 20th place, which he then maintained throughout the rest of the race.

“I was really disappointed that the power steering went on the out-lap,” said James. There just wasn’t anything that we could do. We just had to try and get the car round the track and maintain position as well as we could.

“We both thoroughly enjoyed the first race and it was fair to say the car was on the pace. Steve did a great job in both his stints and made up some considerable places in race one. All we could do though in race two was just hold on and try to get the car over the line in one piece.”

The team head to Brands Hatch on the 30th August for the penultimate round of the Championship.