Pasin Lathouras wrapped up his inaugural season in the British GT Championship with another important points finish; in fact it was his fifth consecutive points scoring result. The seventh and final round took the series to the historic Donington Park circuit in Leicestershire for a 2-hour long race.

But it wasn’t anything like plain sailing in the race. There was to be yet another mountain to climb on raceday as Pasin and his teammate Richard Lyons, having endured a tough qualifying session, started from outside the top-ten on the grid. That however that didn’t daunt the Thai one little bit and was he was quickly into the top ten after the green lights and he then maintained his pace and conserved his tyres while battling his way up into the top five before handing the #29 AF Corse Ferrari 458 GT3 over to Richard.

The experienced Irishman then turned in another thrilling defensive drive and, despite the car’s clear weight disadvantage to its rivals and its resultant tyre wear, he was able to hang on and bring the car home in P8 to keep their championship points scoring run intact.

Donington Park wraps up Pasin’s first season racing in Europe – and his first outside his native Asia bar a couple of one-off races. All seven events on the calendar were new tracks for the 20-year-old to learn and British GT is regarded by many as one of the toughest domestic sports car series in the world.

So it all adds up to a very rewarding learning year for Pasin. It was a disappointment that he was landed with extra ballast this season and that has meant the main challenge over the seven rounds would be to get into the top-ten rather than chase for the podium positions. However Pasin did bag one podium and battled into the higher running order on many occasions so the results were just as promising and Pasin ends the season seventh overall in the Drivers’ Championship – an excellent position for a rookie driver.

A week ago Pasin and Richard won their first race in International GT Open with the same car – albeit one that was without the 75 kg of ballast they carry in British GT. Instantly they were on a level playing field with the other Pro-Am driver combinations and were able to extract their true potential. With the British GT season over with Pasin and Richard now head for the penultimate round of International GT Open at Monza in a fortnight’s time looking to carry on that excellent form.

Practice & Qualifying

After their International GT Open success it was back to British GT just a few days later for Pasin and Richard and the final event of the year. For the Thai driver it would be his first race on 4.02-km, 12-turn Donington Park circuit. For the closing race of the season, which was 2-hours long, there were more than 30 cars (a mix of GT3 and GT4 machines) on the bumper entry list and that would create traffic problems out on the East Midlands track.

There was a lot of work to do for the drivers and team to get the #29 car setup and ready for this race and the free practice sessions demonstrated that they would find this a challenging weekend. In the qualifying session Richard struggled to create a gap in the traffic and could only manage P15 in his group.

Pasin however found better speed and he was one of the quickest cars in his group and that bumped the #29 car up to P12 when the aggregate qualifying times were added up. It would leave the pair on the outside of the sixth row and with plenty of work to do come the race.

Pasin Lathouras: “We both struggled to get a nice clean lap in any of the sessions really and of course it was hard to get the setup right with the extra 75 kg. Even in practice it’s hard to get a nice clean lap down as the track isn’t that big and there’s a lot of cars out there. However our position is decent and we’ve been around this mark quite a few times this year after qualifying and we have battled up into good positions so I think we can have a good race.”

Race

Pasin was true to his word. Starting the #29 car from P12 on the grid he got off to a flying start at the green lights, quickly passing a couple of cars on the first lap to move straight into the top ten. That’s been a reoccurring theme of the 20-year-old’s British GT season really, fast starts and snapping up places on the first lap.

With the bulk of the top-ten runners in close proximity to each other, Pasin spent the remainder of his stint maintaining his pace and keeping the tyres as fresh as possible while constantly fighting up the order. Eventually the youngster climbed up to a highly impressive P5 before the pit window opened, despite the weight handicap, which also affected tyres degradation more and more as the stint went on.

In fact the AF Corse team kept the Thai driver out on track right up to the hour mark and he assumed provisional P1 on the road as he was one of the final cars to enter the pits for the routine changeover. Right until the end of his stint Pasin was able to keep posting representative laptimes as he carefully managed the tyres.

Richard took over the car for the second and final hour and he had to defend the track position with tyres that were going off while keeping the #29 car in the points paying positions. That included a tricky period when a sudden and unexpected shower late in the race made the track somewhat damp over the closing laps. This he did with success, while the tyres went off and he did drop a few places, he dug in deep to limit the affects as much as possible and keep the car firmly in the points. There were certainly no quiet moments all the way to the checkered flag for Richard as he constantly battled to retain track position. In the end P8 added more points for the crew.

In the 2014 British GT Championship final points standings Pasin finishes in seventh place overall, with 74 points, an excellent result for his rookie season.

Now Pasin and Richard can look forward to their second taste of International GT Open action, which comes up in a fortnight’s time at Monza (26-28 September). After three races on three consecutive weekends, that’s something of a breather for Pasin – and a chance to keep up with his university studies.

Pasin Lathouras: “It was a nice way to end up the year with another points finish. I got a good start at the lights and made up a few places and really was always challenging hard throughout my stint. The car is good, but with the extra weight it was always difficult to take the fight to excellent drivers in well-prepared cars especially as the tyres go off quicker, but I was very happy to be able to run a good race pace and work my way up as far as fifth place by the time the pit window opened. The team as usual did a great job and Richard worked really hard to defend our track position. It’s been a good year in British GT, the championship is very well organised and the competition is tough. It feels though that we’ve always been racing with one hand tied behind our backs, but that’s the way it is and I feel I’ve come a long way as a driver from where I was at the end of last season. Now I’m looking forward to Monza and a second race in GT Open. Hopefully we can get another good result there like at Spa and start to round the season off.”