British GT Brands Hatch: Team RJN snatches GT3 pole, Optimum dominates GT4 quali

Alex Buncombe marked his return to Brands Hatch for the first time in more than a decade as he combined with Josh Caygill to take a superb British GT Championship pole for Team RJN at what is shaping up to be a thrilling season finale.

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In GT4, it’s advantage Optimum Motorsport as Jack Brown & Zac Meakin, sitting second in the standings, did everything they could do on Saturday by obliterating their competition – taking pole by more than eight tenths of a second.

GT3

The championship battle took a major turn right in the opening minutes of the session. Firstly, the Collards’ Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 managed to get on-track after the Barwell crew carried out a full engine change in the time between Free Practice and qualifying to keep the points leaders in with a chance of setting the best qualifying they could.

Then, another twist in the title fight. Shaun Balfe’s Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo broke down coming out of Druids on his first hot lap, and he was forced to stop on the outside of Graham Hill Bend with what was discovered to be a crank sensor issue. Unable to be replaced in the session, the pair will start last on the GT3 grid for tomorrow’s two-hour race.

His stoppage, combined with the need to recover Sacha Kakad’s J&S Racing Audi R8 LMS Evo2 which had gone into the gravel at Clearways, led to the only red flag of the session and cut down any early hot laps before they could be logged on the timing screens.

When the track went green again, it was Caygill who hit the pace as he set a 1m24.535sec to push himself to the top and just out the clutches of Morgan Tillbrook – flying himself in the sister Garage 59 McLaren.

With the Ams winding themselves up in the first part of qualifying, there was a number of last minute changes to the order as they looked to put the best time in as they could to hand over to their Pros.

Come the flag, the lead pair remained but Kevin Tse was the closest challenger as the 2 Seas racer jumped up to third and ahead of Rob Collard, who had a lap time good enough for second deleted but managed to recover to fourth – right ahead of team-mate, and closest title rival, Alex Martin.

Stick the Pros in and Buncombe set about reinforcing that pole position as he set the second fastest time of the weekend so far to put the RJN machine onto a pole in what Buncombe said was his first day of dry weather racing in British GT this year.

He was fortunate though, as Marcus Clutton was on a charge and looking to capitalise on Tillbrook’s rapid opening stint. Putting in increasingly quicker laps, he couldn’t find the final tenth he needed and finished on the outside of the front-row by 0.080sec.

In the championship, the pendulum has swung towards the chasers as Sandy Mitchell put in one hell of a lap to recover from a so-so lap from Martin to go third – 0.521sec off the leading pace after his individual lap of 1m22.196sec.

The Collards will start sixth, Ricky not quite able to dig into the same reserves of pace as Mitchell – who is a Lamborghini factory driver – and will have the 2 Seas Mercedes as well as the Optimum McLaren of Mark Radcliffe & Tom Gamble to overcome before they even have a sniff of overtaking their team-mates.

Despite a lurid run through the gravel trap at Sheene, Sam Neary put in a storming lap to push Team Abba Racing up into seventh – two father-and-son crews on to consecutive rows of the grid.

The returning Orange Racing by JMH McLaren of Simon Orange and Benji Goethe took a well-earned eighth, just ahead of Beechdean AMR’s Andrew Howard and Tom Wood – the latter putting in a good effort in his first GT3 & British GT qualifying.

Greystone GT’s Callum Macleod & Mike Price rounded out the top 10 in their Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

GT4

The championship fight in GT4 is pretty simple, who ever finishes highest wins, or near enough at least. And Optimum Motorsport’s Brown and Meakin made sure they put themselves right in the mix to overhaul their Forsetti Motorsport rivals come tomorrow.

From the first session, Brown was on a charge. Despite coming out slightly later, that space on track was a crucial advantage as he vaulted up the order and unseated a hard-charging Aston Millar – in the DTO Motorsport Ginetta G56 – from the top spot by 0.075sec.

The pair had a cushion of more than eight-tenths of a second ahead of Mikey Porter, in the championship-leading Forsetti Aston Martin, who wasn’t able to find the same pace that the leaders were putting out.

Stick in the second drivers – Meakin, Freddie Tomlinson, & Jamie Day respectively – and the order didn’t change as the Optimum racer found yet more speed in the McLaren Artura to put in a 1m29.766sec and confirm an eventual margin of 0.801sec over Tomlinson who tried his best but couldn’t dig into those same pace reserves.

Day and Porter’s combined times was good enough for third but almost a second down on the front-row sitters. They did have three-tenths on Callum Davies and Sai Sanjay who’ve had their best day in British GT in the RACE LAB Artura by taking fourth on the grid.

Title outsiders Charles Dawson & Seb Morris have done themselves a decent favour as they manoeuvred their Team Parker Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4 to fifth overall and first in Pro-Am and within striking distance of the leaders should any opening lap chaos unfold around the fearsome Paddock Hill Bend.

Another Mercedes will line up in sixth as Luca Hopkinson & Harry George stealthed their way up into a good spot – 0.062sec ahead of Ian Duggan and Gordie Mutch in the Mahiki Racing Lotus Emira, which will be starting second in Pro-Am.

Third in Pro-Am is the crew lining up eighth overall as Marc Warren and Will Orton couldn’t quite extract the last few tenths they needed in the second Forsetti Aston Martin Vantage.

The Academy Motorsport Ford Mustangs round out the top 10, with the Matt Nicoll-Jones and Will Moore entry ahead of Erik Evans & Marco Signoretti.