Free Practice 1
Dan Harper and Darren Leung enjoyed a flying start to the season by topping the opening practice session at Oulton Park in their Century Motorsport BMW M4 GT3. In GT4, new entry DTO Motorsport didn’t waste any time in asserting itself, with Aston Millar and Josh Rowledge’s McLaren Artura GT4 leading the class.
In a session punctuated by two red flags, much of the heavy lifting was done early in the session. Harper took the wheel of the Century BMW for the start and set two laps good enough for top spot, putting the car a few tenths clear of Euan Hankey’s RACE LAB McLaren.
The first red flag appeared after Marcus Clutton’s Enduro Motorsport McLaren GT3 had a coming together with Carl Cavers’ Century BMW GT4 at Shell Oils. The tangle put both cars out for the remainder of the session.
When running resumed, we saw the first of the 2 Seas Mercedes, with both Jonny Adam and Jules Gounon enjoying their first laps with 30 minutes left on the clock. Gounon only did a couple of fliers, but his best put him within 0.005s of Harper to secure second for the car he shares with reigning champion Ian Loggie. Sandy Mitchell and Shaun Balfe moved up to third fastest in their Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan, with Marvin Kichhöfer and Alexander West grabbing fourth in their Garage 59 McLaren, just ahead of Adam and James Cottingham’s Mercedes-AMG.
The session was curtailed by a few minutes when Andrey Borodin spun his Greystone GT McLaren, bringing out the second red flag with just five minutes remaining and setting the final order in stone.
Much like in GT3, GT4 was actually settled early on as Millar quickly asserted the DTO McLaren at the head of the order. Seb Hopkins did the best job of chasing him down, moving to within 0.2s of him in the R Racing Aston Martin he shares with Josh Miller. Jack Brown and Charles Clark were third quickest in the Optimum McLaren Artura.
Freddie Tomlinson and Stuart Middleton took fourth place in their Raceway Motorsport Ginetta G56 ahead of the leading Pro-Am entry of Kavi Jundu and Tom Rawlings, whose Paddock Motorsport Artura wound up a fine fifth. Harry George and Harry Nunn rounded out the top six in their Enduro Motorsport Artura.
The session featured 35 of the 36 entries, with Team Parker Racing’s Porsche 718 Cayman being the only car not to feature as the squad attempted to cure an electrical issue.
Free Practice 2
Ross Gunn emerged on top of a fraught second free practice session at Oulton Park, edging the Beechdean AMR Aston Martin Vantage (pictured top) to the fastest time across a session where five different crews took a turn out front. That was in contrast to GT4, where a superb early effort from Dan Vaughan ensured the Team Parker Racing Porsche 718 Cayman that had missed FP1 shone brightest in the second session.
GT3 provided a tight tussle over the final fastest time pre-qualifying, with five different cars leading the way across the hour. Callum Macleod made the best start, putting the Greystone GT Mercedes-AMG he shares with Mike Price on top, before Sam Neary edged his and his father’s Team Abba Racing AMG past. Progress was briefly interrupted by a red flag caused when Mark Sansom spun his Barwell Lamborghini and needed to be recovered.
When running resumed, it was all about Raffaele Marciello in the RAM Racing AMG. Having used the first session to play himself into Oulton’s sweeps, the Swiss-Italian set two laps good enough for fastest time, the second of which put him and team-mate John Ferguson 0.7s clear, even if Marciello was a second off the morning’s quickest time.
That set a benchmark for the others, and both Gunn and Sandy Mitchell hopped back in for a shot at it. Gunn was first to depose Marciello, before Mitchell snuck ahead with 11 mins left, only for Gunn to reload for one final run and get the job done for himself and Andrew Howard. Mitchell and Shaun Balfe were a tenth back, with the Nearys taking third.
Marciello and Ferguson were fourth, ahead of Mike Price and Macleod, with James Cottingham and Jonny Adam rounding out the top six.
GT4 was largely a game of cat-and-mouse, but nobody could find a way to reel in Dan Vaughan in the Team Parker Racing Porsche 718 Cayman. A lightning effort early on out the car half-a-second up, and nobody managed to fully erode the gap. It was quite a way to bounce back given Vaughan and Zac Meakin missed the entirety of FP1 due to an electronic glitch.
Ian Gough and Tom Wrigley were second fastest in the RACE LAB McLaren Artura GT4, just over two tenths behind, while Jack Brown and Charles Clark brought Optimum’s Artura up to third. Harrys George and Nunn were fourth in Enduro’s McLaren, while Joe Wheeler and Esmee Hawkey were fifth for Toro Verde, with FP1 pace-setters Aston Millar and Josh Rowledge sixth in the DTO McLaren.
Pictures JEP/ British GT
