The Fox Motorsport Ginetta team were overjoyed to take a home pole position at Brands Hatch for Sunday’s two-hour race, Jamie Stanley and team principal Paul McNeilly doing enough with their respective qualifying laps to put the #48 car ahead when the times were combined.
“The team only came together 18 months ago, this is about them as much as me and Paul,” said Stanley afterwards. The result was all the sweeter for them having overcome power-steering problems during the morning’s practice sessions.
The GPRM Toyota played no part in either segment of qualifying after its earlier engine trouble. McNeilly’s 1:34.165 put him second-quickest in the first part and was vital to ensuring the Fox car would top the times overall at the end. Academy Motorsport Aston Martin man Will Moore was just slightly quicker in this half, though, going round in 1:34.145 in the #61 car.
Also quick in the first part were Aleksander Schjerpen (1:34.252 to put the #43 Century Motorsport Ginetta provisionally third) and Oz Yusuf (fourth in the ISSY Lotus Evora with a 1:34.496). Beechdean’s Jamie Chadwick was fourth-fastest in the championship-leading #407 Aston Martin, stopping the clock at 1:34.588.
In the second part of qualifying, Stanley climbed aboard the Fox Ginetta and worked down to a benchmark of 1:34.165 – not quite as quick as Moore in the first part of the session, but more than enough for pole when combined with McNeilly’s time.
Second and third-fastest this time around were Gavan Kershaw in the Issy Lotus and James Birch in the Century Motorsport Ginetta, with Dennis Strandberg fourth in the Academy car driven by Moore earlier on.
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