Dry and sunny conditions prevailed for the British GT field as the swooping Brands Hatch circuit greeted it for a clean, incident free ten minute session. The only missing car at the start was the #17 M-Sport Bentley, which sat passively in the pits.
It was Rory Butcher who set the initial pace, the Oman Racing Aston Martin GT3 getting into a 1:28.166 before quickly pitting.
Tom Onslow Cole’s Strata 21 Aston Martin GT3 then delivered an exceptional warm up time, 1:26.997, just shy of his qualifying time, but this was quickly bettered by Phil Keen, the Trackspeed Porsche clearly feeling comfortable at Brands this weekend; 1:26.368. Trackspeed reinforced this confidence as Nick Tandy went comfortably second quickest with 1:26.896 for the #31 sister car.
The Bentley exited pitlane, so all cars were now taking part in the session, Steven Kane at the wheel. A short burst of laps would displace Tandy’s run, the #17 M-Sport car now second quickest overall.
In GT4 Gav Kershaw gave notice of intent by running his Lotus Evora 1.5 seconds quicker than Devon Modell’ s Aston Martin, his best lap a 1:33.818, but Modell soon improved to reduce the gap to 0.8s.
Brad Ellis however showed late in the session; 1:34.172 – just 0.354 behind Kershaw – putting the #46 Twisted Team Parker Ginetta second as the session ended.
So the evidence from the pre-race sessions suggests that this race will boil down to Porsche versus Aston in GT3, with the #63 Trackspeed Porsche of Minshaw & Keen and the #1 Beechdean Vantage of Howard & Adam the bookies’ choice. However, there are several other cars likely to be very much in the mix.
So why was the Aston going so well round Brands, Rory Butcher? “The car’s just really well balanced around here, and the mix of medium and high speed corners plays into our hands,” said the Scot. “It’s not the quickest car in a straight line, but there’s only really one straight here and it’s uphill for most of it; and the slower corners, apart from Druids, aren’t really that slow. And we’ve been able to use quite an aggressive set-up without it hurting us in tyre wear – they’re lasting well for virtually a whole stint.”
There was a celebratory atmosphere in the Oman Racing pits, and not just because both cars would be starting from the second row at their home race – the team celebrating Ahmad Al Harthy’s 32nd birthday, with David Bartrum leading the ‘choir’ in singing Happy Birthday.
He was happier than this in the garage, honest!
Elsewhere, Andrew Howard was entertaining some unusual visitors in the form of the Wycombe Wanderers football team; the Beechdean boss now being a board member of the League 2 side.
As the race start neared, strangely dark clouds were crossing the circuit suggesting a fully dry race may not necessarily be guaranteed.
MH
