This morning’s first ‘open class’ 40 minute practice session was red flagged slightly early after Tim Eakin’s Stratton Motorsport GT4 Lotus Evora found the gravel at McLeans, light drizzle keeping the field on its toes and times elevated. The session closed with the Minshaw / Keen Demon Tweeks Barwell BMW Z4 GT3 fastest, a 1:41.413 being Phil Keen’s best. Matt Bell’s TF Sport Aston Martin was the only other car in the 1:41’s, with the championship leading Ecurie Ecosse BMW nearly a second off for third in the hands of Alexander Sims.
Marco Attard: “The circuit suits the BMW, without the Melbourne loop! We don’t quite have the grunt of the Aston Martin around that sector but I’m feeling good and we have to try to approach this race the same as any other.”
British GT wouldn’t be quite the same without a Ferrari presence and following some tough experiences in traffic this season we are sadly missing the FF Corse entered 458. The prancing horse is nevertheless represented by Rosso Verde, the popular pairing of Hector Lester and Benny Simonsen dipping back into the series for its last round and posting fourth quickest time overall in the wet session.
Ditto Porsche. Known for its campaign in VLN, Chris Esser’s German ProSport outfit arrives here under the Invitation class banner with its Cayman 981 SP. The smaller Porsche is potentially competitive as an affordable GT4 entry and Adam Christodoulou returns to British GT for a one-off drive with French driver Henry Hassid.
GT4 times were topped by Oz Yusuf and Gav Kershaw’s Lotus Evora; 1:44.787 being the damp benchmark in the hands of Yusuf, quicker indeed than a couple of GT3 cars including the #30 Mercedes AMG of Lewis Plato, who is paired this weekend with Bradley Ellis.
Daniel Lloyd is back to British GT, this weekend sampling GT4 with Academy Motorsport. His fastest time put the #62 Aston second. Third in the session was Nathan Freke, the Century Motorsport principal getting some race time in aboard their second string entry this weekend.
As conditions improved, times started to come down for the Bronze-only 20 minutes session, Andrew Jarman being the first of the ‘Am’ drivers to go increasingly faster than the Pros as conditions improved. The TF Sport Aston Martin held overall fastest lap of 1:40.960 on a drying surface before championship hopeful Andrew Howard put in a monster lap as the session closed; 1:37.733 was three seconds quicker and notice of intent.
Liam Griffin: “It’s theirs to lose and we wish them well this weekend, but we’d like to be in the mix. We fancy our chances of being fairly near the front and if we can take a win they’ve got to work hard for it.”
David Bartrum: “British GT has delivered a good championship and again it has come down to the last round. There will be no team orders; we will use both cars to the best of our advantage and I expect Barwell will do the same.”
ML
