British GT Silverstone: 2 Seas sail to pole, while Optimum dominate GT4

Kevin Tse praised continuous set-up improvements to the 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3 as he and Maxi Götz powered to British GT Championship pole for the Silverstone 500.

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In GT4, Jack Brown and Zac Meakin didn’t put a foot wrong as they stormed to the top spot in their McLaren Artura – building on the strong pace they showed throughout practice.

GT3

Early on in the session, which was thankfully dry, there was action unfolding everywhere you looked with times consistently dropping as the Ams – who went out first in the two-part qualifying session – got more comfortable pushing to the limit of their cars.

Initially Rob Collard – a winner last time out at Oulton Park – stole a march, with Sacha Kakad chasing him in the J&S Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 but as the session came to the boil it was Tse who was lighting up the timing screens in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo with a 1m58.996sec giving him a decent margin over Morgan Tillbrook who was himself peeling up the timing screens in the Garage 59 McLaren 720S.

Continuing on with the form that put them on top of Pre-Qualifying, Alex Martin finished third in the Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2, just ahead of Collard in the sister Barwell machine.

Take out the Ams, add in the Pros and what unfolded was exhilarating. With Tse handing over to Götz with four-tenths in hand, the German had a bit of a margin to play with for when the times were aggregated but it didn’t mean he wasn’t under pressure.

From the start of the 10-minute blast – good for only four laps really around the long Silverstone circuit – Sandy Mitchell, taking over from Martin, was on a real charge at a track that he’s won at a couple of times in the past.

Powering to the fastest individual time in the session put the Lamborghini to the top of the times and meant Götz had the pressure put on him to dig a lap out the bag and snatch the pole back.

Charge he did. Despite the tyres starting to go off the Mercedes factory ace wasn’t going to give up on the chance of starting the 500 at the head of the 22-car field, and his best lap gave he and Tse a combined time of 3m55.976sec – a slender 0.135sec ahead of Martin & Mitchell.

Behind, the reigning champ was another on a charge as Darren Leung pushed the Century Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 to sixth in the Am session before Dries Vanthoor demonstrated why he’s one of the top tier of GT drivers as he pushed every single ounce out of the #1 to take third on the grid, 0.747sec off the pole time but, crucially, 0.030sec ahead of Shaun Balfe and Adam Smalley in a Garage 59 McLaren that’s been strong all day in the pair’s hands.

Fifth went to Tom Gamble and Mark Radcliffe, another pair who’ve been doing good things in a McLaren – this time run by Optimum Motorsport – while Phil Keen and Ian Loggie ensured additional Mercedes representation with sixth in the second 2 Seas Motorsport machine.

Despite their early pace, Rob & Ricky Collard couldn’t capitalise and will start seventh in their Huracán, the father-son team the first of the crews outside the one-second from pole marker. Not being able to extract those final few tenths was also the case for Tillbrook and team-mate Marcus Clutton who’ll take the start in eighth.

The newly evo-ed Aston Martin Vantage of Giacomo Petrobelli and Jonny Adam will start in ninth for Blackthorn – the former setting early pace in his Am session before fading slightly later on. While RAM Racing will round out the top 10 with John Ferguson and Raffaele Marciello having a reasonable session in their BMW M4 GT3.

Of note, the GT3 field has shrunk by one with the Ferrari 296 GT3 of Sky Tempesta Racing being forced to withdraw after sustaining rear-end damage in Free Practice this morning.

GT4

A day of tight battling in GT4 suggested that the battle for pole in the secondary class was going to be a tight one with no one wanting to stake their money on betting on who would leave the two 10-minute sessions with pole in their hands for tomorrow.

What happened, though, was something slightly different. From the very start of the first session, Jack Brown was on a real charge in the Optimum McLaren Artura and didn’t look in any doubt as to who would be taking the top spot as he set a new lap record on his way to first – a mammoth 0.217sec ahead of Stuart Middleton in the CMR Ginetta G56 GT4 Evo.

The Ginetta had decent pace, as demonstrated by the fact that he finished the first run four-tenths clear of Mikey Porter’s Forsetti Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage, who himself was a couple of tenths clear of Blake Angliss – who did a great job in the Paddock Motorsport Artura.

When the second drivers jumped in, it was almost a foregone conclusion of who would take pole with Zac Meakin putting in another individual flyer of a lap to ensure the pair would be in the best possible position to avoid any first lap chaos come the green flag tomorrow. Freddie Tomlinson didn’t give them that much breathing space though, with a 0.237sec gap suggesting the McLaren duo might not have it all their own way on the start.

You had to look back a full 1.2sec to find third, with Porter and Jamie Day 1.501sec off pole in the Aston and only a tenth ahead of Angliss and Alex Walker who’ve easily bettered their best performance of the season so far.

Fifth, and also putting in a great performance, was Kavi Jundu and Dan Vaughan in the Toyota Gazoo Racing UK Toyota Supra GT4 Evo who snuck their way into fifth and Pro-Am pole – a sign of how strong the Silver Cup entry is this season – with Charles Dawson and Seb Morris taking sixth and second in Pro-Am for Team Parker Racing in the Mercedes-AMG GT4.

The Silverstone 500 starts at 12.30pm local time (1.30pm in Europe) and y0u can watch all the action live on GT REPORT!