Barwell Motorsport & 2 Seas Motorsports took both British GT Championship pole positions at Oulton Park thanks to Rob Collard & Maxi Götz prevailing in a qualifying battle decided by thousandths of seconds. 

OULTON PARK: ENTRY LIST | TIMETABLE | PREVIEW | PRACTICE REPORT

In GT4, Josh Miller took a comfortable pole for Mahiki Racing in the Lotus Emira, but then in the second session Charlie Robertson took the top spot for Century Motorsport as he set his best lap before a deluge of rain effectively cut the session short. 

There’s a change in qualifying format compared to the first two races of the year, with times not combining at Oulton Park. Instead, the Ams in GT3 & GT4 set the grid for the opening race on Monday, while the Pros – in the second of each session for both categories – set the grid for the final race. 

Race One

Rob Collard added yet another Oulton Park pole to his record as he rung every last second out of his Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 to take the top spot in one of the tightest British GT qualifying sessions in years. 

It didn’t start that way. Giacomo Petrobelli was fastest right from the off in his Blackthorn AMR Aston Martin Vantage as he got up to speed quickly and set a 1m34.074sec to go a second clear of his competition as Alex Martin – in the sister Huracán – took a bit longer to get up to his peak speed. 

But when the competition got up to speed, didn’t things get tight. Petrobelli improved his time, and then championship leader Charles Dawson punched up to second before Collard put in a 1m33.717sec to snatch the provisional pole.

It didn’t last long. Petrobelli was ringing the neck of the Vantage to put in a 1m33.787sec and look pretty solid at the top. Collard, though, had different ideas and he stormed to a 1m33.673sec – 0.014sec ahead of the Italian. 

That was to be all she wrote for the top spot, but there was still a battle behind and Petrobelli was fortunate to be starting on the front row as the two 2 Seas Motorsport cars were looming large and were unfortunate to miss out. Kevin Tse took third, 0.030sec off pole and 0.016sec off second, with team-mate Dawson another 0.033sec further back – the top four covered by just 0.063sec. 

Fifth, and almost half-a-second back from that squabbling pack ahead, was Simon Orange who proved to be the best of the McLarens in a session where the 720S GT3 Evo runners seemed to struggle a little, he was just 0.007sec ahead of Alex Martin in the second of the Barwell machines.

A tenth behind was Mark Smith, his triple-win at GT Cup’s Brands Hatch round last weekend helping him keep up a strong turn of pace as he went 0.062sec better than Spirit of Race’s Duncan Cameron, in the green and white Ferrari 296 GT3. 

Richard Neary finished just outside the one-second from pole mark in 9th, while Morgan Tillbrook was 0.004sec down in his Optimum McLaren to round out the top 10. 

GT4 proved to be a back-and-forth affair. At first, Luca Hopkinson looked as though he’d gone fastest in the early running, but his first flyer in the Optimum McLaren Artura was struck off for a track limits violation, allowing the sister car piloted by Marc Warren to sneak up to the top. 

His hold on the top spot wasn’t to last long as Josh Miller proved just how adept he is at hauling round the Mahiki Racing Lotus Emira at Oulton Park as he put in a simply remarkable 1m41.297sec. 

The competition behind couldn’t come close, Hopkinson put in a legal lap to get within 0.515sec but with rain starting to fall in the closing minutes of the 10-minute session, teams decided to box their drivers and get ready for the second part of GT4 qualifying as quickly as possible, rather than risk getting caught out. 

That meant Century Motorsport’s Ravi Ramyead couldn’t improve on his third-fastest time – 0.030sec slower than Hopkinson’s – but importantly remained as the top of the Pro-Am runners in the category as Warren was stuck in fourth.

Race Two

For the first time this season, the Pro drivers got to set a grid of their own as they put in times for Race Two on Monday – a race, incidentally, they’ll also be starting – and while times didn’t prove as tight as those for their Am co-drivers, it was still a thrilling session. 

After his success in Pre-Qualifying, it seemed only right that Sven Muller topped the times at first in his Team Parker Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R. He didn’t have much time to enjoy being at the top, as fellow German Maxi Götz powered his equally Germanic Mercedes-AMG GT3 ahead of him with a stunning lap of 1m31.936sec, the first time today anyone has broken through that barrier.

Sandy Mitchell, taking over from Alex Martin in the Lamborghini, was close to unseating the 2 Seas driver but fell just short on what turned out to be his best lap of the session, just 0.007sec away. 

The competition tried as hard as they could but weren’t helped at all by Götz improving his pole time down to a 1m31.881sec to stamp his mark on the session. 

Second stayed with Mitchell, with Muller prevailing in a late battle with Marvin Kirchhöfer to take his and Nick Jones’ best qualifying result in quite some time. Fifth went to Jonny Adam, 0.241sec down in the Aston he took over from Petrobelli, while Marcus Clutton took sixth for Orange Racing with JMH. Combined with Simon Orange’s fifth in the first session, the pair have hit their groove in a 720S that has a new engine this weekend. 

Hugo Cook couldn’t replicate Collard’s heroics in the Pro session, but took seventh, ahead of Sam Neary in eighth. Kiern Jewiss had a bit a struggle and will start ninth in the car he shares with Charles Dawson. Beechdean AMR’s Tom Wood rounded out the fast 10. 

With rain coming in during the start of the second GT4 qualifying session, the name of the game was to set a fast lap, on your first lap, and boy didn’t Charlie Robertson do that to perfection.

It was Jack Brown who went to a flying lap first, with Robertson slightly behind. The Optimum racer’s 1m41.457sec looked mighty, with Robertson setting personal bests but looking like he might not be able to unseat the Artura. Never try and predict these things, though, as the BMW racer’s time put him to the top by the slenderest of slender margins – 0.001sec splitting the pair. 

He tried to improve on the next lap, but with the rain coming down even heavier it wasn’t going to be easy. Indeed, dipping a wheel onto the white line at the high-speed Island Bend proved that wonderfully as he was sent into a lurid spin across wet grass, he thankfully didn’t cause any damage. 

With his off, teams elsewhere decided that times weren’t going to improve any and the last four minutes of the session was essentially spent watching cars in the pits. 

Behind the lead pair, Jack Mitchell headed a second-row lock out for Mahiki Racing with Aiden Neate – co-driver to race one pole-sitter Miller – taking fourth. 

Harry George took fifth in the second Optimum entry, while Joe Wheeler put the third Mahiki Emira in sixth. Branden Templeton rounded out a slim GT4 field in seventh for Century Motorsport.