British GT Donington Park: Collards take GT3 pole, Day and Porter secure GT4.

Rob and Ricky Collard took pole position for tomorrow’s British GT race at Donington Park grabbing pole position after Collard senior took second place in Q1 and Ricky bagged the top spot in Q2. With just 5 points in the championship lead and facing a 15-second success penalty in the race, the #68 Barwell Lamborghini must start well in the race so claiming pole position was vital.

Jamie Day and Mikey Porter took pole in GT4 whilst the second-placed #90 Mclaren of Zac Meakin and Jack Brown are left waiting on the results of an investigation following a late pit entry from Brown at the end of Q3. With just two points separating the teams at the top of the drivers championship, the result of the investigation could tilt the championship in the direction of Day and Porter.

Following a day of wet and generally miserable conditions, qualifying opened in a window of dry weather which saw the track move from damp to dry through the course of the session before the rain started to close in again.

GT3 Qualifying

Kevin Tse driving the #18 2Seas Motorsport Mercedes AMG GT3 took the fastest time in Q1 just 0.023 seconds ahead of the #61 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini of Rob Collard. With the session opening on a damp but drying track, Collard was quick early on and stablemate Alex Martin wasn’t far behind in the sister Barwell Lamborghini. But as a dry line developed around the circuit it was Tse who managed to sneak in an extra lap and grab the top spot from Collard.

By Q2 the track had fully dried allowing the pro drivers to find their pace. It was Ricky Collard leading the field in the early stages but Sandy Mitchell was chasing hard to secure the top spots for Barwell.

Maxi Götz, driving the #18 Mercedes, was close behind Mitchell with the pair trading second and third place between them but neither could make a dent in Collard’s lead who held onto first place.

The combined result puts Rob Collard on pole, with Tse alongside him in P2 and Alex Martin starting in third place.

Starting in fourth place is Mike Price in the #3 Greystone GT Mercedes with John Ferguson’s #15 Ram Racing BMW alongside him. Matt Topham starts from P6 in the #10 Blackthorn Motorsport Aston Martin with teammate, Giacomo Petrobelli next on the grid.

Newly crowned Silver Am champion, Shaun Balfe starts from P8 after a puncture ended Q2 early for co-driver Adam Smalley whilst the sister Garage 59 McLaren of Morgan Tillbrook starts from P9. The top ten is rounded out by Mark Radcliffe in the #27 Optimum Motorsport McLaren.

GT4 Qualifying

In Q3 Jack Brown took the fastest lap in the #90 Optimum Motorsport McLaren Artura however he ended the session under investigation for a last-minute entry into the pitlane. Aston Millar took second place just 0.173 seconds behind in the #56 DTO Motorsport Ginetta. Third place went the way of Mikey Porter in the #7 Forsetti Motorsport Aston Martin leaving the top 3 all within 0.2 of a second of each other and 0.6 seconds ahead of the rest of the pack headed up my Marco Signoretti in the #61 Academy Motorsport Ford Mustang.

In Q4 it was a similar story but this time Jamie Day in the #7 Aston heading the pack for much of the session. Zac Meakin in the #90 McLaren followed in second place and Freddie Tomlinson in the #56 Ginetta.

The combined result saw Day and Porter take pole position with Meakin and Brown in second place subject to the result of the investigation into Brown’s late pit entry. Tomlinson and Millar start in third place and the second Forsetti car, the #47 Aston Martin of Will Orton and Mark Warren.

Fifth place goes to Matt Nicol Jones and Will Moore in the #62 Academy Motorsport Mustang, just ahead of teammates, Signoretti and Erik Evans in the #61 Mustang.

Seb Morris and Charles Dawson start in P7 in the #31 Ram Racing Mercedes with Luca Hopkinson and Harry George in the #17 Ram Racing Mercedes. Charlie Robertson and Ravi Ramyead start in P9 in the Century Motorsport BMW and Sai Sanjay and Callum Davies in P10 driving the #95 Racelab McLaren.