British GT’s annual visit to the Brands Hatch GP circuit in Kent kicked off Saturday morning with a relatively uneventful first free-practice session for the 31-strong field.
Notable absences from the entry list this round are RJN’s GT3 Nissan GT-R and Balfe Motorsport’s GT3 McLaren. Steller Motorsport are back on the grid after sitting out Spa, albeit with just the one Toyota, and the Ultimate Speed Aston also makes a return, having not made the trip to Belgium.
In GT3, early flying laps from the Pro drivers saw Nicki Thiim’s #11 TF Sport Aston topping the timing screens with a lap of 1:26.377, ahead of the #7 Team Parker Bentley, second courtesy of Calum MacLeod’s 1:26.883. Johnny Adam put the #75 Optimum Motorsport Aston third with a 1:26.921.
The only late improver was Phil Keen, who put the Barwell Lamborghini into P4 in the last 10 minutes of the session with a time of 1:27.070.
GT4 saw Scott Malvern set down an early benchmark of 1:34.118 in the Team Parker Mercedes (above), ahead of Michael O’Brien’s 1:34.443 in the #4 Tolman McLaren and Will Burns’ 1:34.476 in the #50 HHC Motorsport Ginetta.
A red flag briefly interrupted running 22 minutes in when Will Moore had a minor trip into the gravel in the Academy Motorsport Aston, and running was halted again with 18 minutes to due to another off for the same car.
