Marvin Kirchhöfer smashed the Silverstone lap record as he secured pole alongside Morgan Tillbrook for the British GT Championship’s first three-hour race of the year, the Silverstone 500. 

BRITISH GT SILVERSTONE: PREVIEW | ENTRY LIST | LIVE TIMING | PRACTICE REPORT

There was similar dominance in GT4 as Josh Miller’s beast of an opening lap, 1.4sec quicker than anyone else, allowed Mahiki Racing to cruise to pole in the secondary class. He and Aiden Neate finished 1.340sec ahead of their nearest competition. 

GT3

Despite Optimum Motorsport eventually ending up on pole, it didn’t appear as though it would be a McLaren 720S GT3 on pole if you followed the journey of the full qualifying session. With the Ams and the Pros both setting laps that would combine to set the grid, there was plenty of scope for surprises to be thrown up as the final grid was developed.

Indeed, in the first session it was Blackthorn AMR’s Giacomo Petrobelli who stormed his way to the front initially as he got comfortable in the Aston Martin Vantage. After the first run, he was more than eight-tenths ahead of Tillbrook and sitting pretty at the top, but as the session went on the gap narrowed with the Italian handing over to team-mate Jonny Adam with just over a tenth in hand over Tillbrook and Kirchhöfer.

Advantage, though, was still with the Aston crew. The McLaren racer didn’t read the script. It took just his first lap to smash the long-standing British GT qualifying lap record – and the overall lap record, which will surely get obliterated tomorrow – with a 1m56.569sec.

Adam’s response was a 1m57.344sec, a great lap but not one that was going to be enough to put a dent in the 0.665sec deficit he was looking at on the timing screens. He tried his best, but couldn’t plumb the same depths that Kirchhöfer was digging into in the McLaren and it looked as though second was going to be the best he could muster.

But this session was going to be ever changeable and so it proved as Maxi Götz came out of relative nowhere to set the only other individual lap in the 1m56s to squeeze the 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3 onto the front-row of the grid by 0.004sec and carry on a great start to the season for Götz and Kevin Tse having claimed a podium at Donington Park.

While the gap between pole and the two behind was big – 0.661sec between the front-row – the gap between the top three and fourth was a gargantuan 1.271sec as Barwell Motorsport’s Alex Martin & Patrick Kujala added variety to manufacturers at the front with their Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2. 

It was close for the pair, as Kujala – replacing Sandy Mitchell for the weekend – was close to being usurped by the returning Dan Harper, who finished fifth in the Paradine Competition BMW M4 GT3 Evo he drives alongside Darren Leung. A great demonstration of BoP in action. 

Despite both of them having quick laps deleted for track limits at Copse, Orange Racing with JMH’s Simon Orange and Marcus Clutton took sixth – just 0.06sec behind the BMW ahead. The pair have been getting faster and faster, and will be hoping the third-row start in their McLaren will give them a great platform to build from ahead of Sunday’s 180-minute test.

Seventh, and struggling seemingly with the success ballast in their Mercedes-AMG GT3 was the second 2 Seas pairing of Charles Dawson and Kiern Jewiss, who managed to get two-tenths of breathing space over Rob Collard and Hugo Cook in the second Barwell entry.

Andrew Gilbert and Fran Rueda added even more variety to the top ten by taking ninth in their Kessel Racing Ferrari 296, while Mark Smith and Martin Plowman rounded out the fastest ten for Paddock Motorsport.

GT4

The secondary class is normally a tightly contested affair, with just fractions of a second between entries. Josh Miller, though, had different ideas as his lap in the opening part of GT4 qualifying blew a hole in the attempts of any of his rivals to try and snatch pole away.

Looking strong all weekend, the Mahiki Racing Lotus Emiras came into the session the favourites for one of them to snatch the top spot, but as Miller started to wind up no one could have guessed that his early lap of 2m07.981sec was going to be the telling effort. 

In the first session, his fellow Silver Cup racer Harry George was the next fastest, the Optimum McLaren Artura running strong and giving George just enough to keep himself clear of competition nipping at his heels which included Marc Warren and Ravi Ramyead – the duo belying their Bronze-rated status to keep the Silvers honest ahead.

Come the second session, and Pros joining the Silvers, Aiden Neate had no worries in converting Miller’s lap into pole as his 2m08.241sec on tyres his co-driver had got the best out of already. Their eventual advantage was 1.340sec. 

Second went to Warren and Jack Brown, the latter’s 2m08.108sec squeezed the Artura ahead of Ramyead and Charlie Robertson’s Century Motorsport BMW M4 GT4 Evo – that duo are having a solid season to date and are battling hard with Warren and Brown in the Pro/Am sub-category within GT4. 

Fourth was the second Optimum McLaren of George and Luca Hopkinson, while fifth went to the Mahiki Lotus of Jack Mitchell and Steve Lake. Mitchell had been setting the pace all day in practice, but found themselves slightly out-paced to their Silver Cup team-mates over the two sessions. 

In a solid showing for Century, the second BMW of Chris Salkeld and Brandon Templeton qualified sixth ahead of Phil Keen and Jon Currie in the #30 Team Parker Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4. 

The Silverstone 500 gets underway at 12.30pm UK time, 1.30pm in Europe, and you’ll be able to watch it all unfold on GT REPORT!