Jonny Adam put himself in the best position to take the outright GT3 win record in the British GT Championship as teammate Giacomo Petrobelli put in a breath-taking lap in the first part of qualifying to take the first pole for Blackthorn ahead of the three-hour race at Spa.

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There was domination too in the GT4 category as Josh Miller and Jack Mitchell took the brand-new Mahiki Racing Ginetta G56 GT4 Evo to a comprehensive class pole – more than 1.7sec ahead of the pack behind. 

GT3

With track temperatures dipping to a still scorching 47C, the GT3 qualifying session was a hot affair on-and-off track as teams looked to get the best possible grid position for Sunday’s three hour race – aiming for as high a start as possible to avoid the traditional chaos that normally surrounds the first run round La Source and down the hill towards Eau Rouge. 

That message clearly rang true with Petrobelli, who got behind the wheel of the Blackthorn Aston Martin Vantage and extracted every ounce of speed from the car right from the off. 

His first lap was a 2m17.533sec, which gave him a lead of more than 1.2sec over the rest of the field with everyone’s first laps in the books in the Am part of qualifying and left his rivals scrabbling to find a response. 

That initial charge was led by Simon Orange, in an Orange Racing by JMH McLaren 720S GT3 Evo that finished the morning’s practice sessions in first and second. Having had his first lap deleted, his second closed in on Petrobelli somewhat but was still 0.830sec down. 

Quick laps from Kevin Tse in the 2 Seas Mercedes-AMG GT3 and Morgan Tillbrook in the Optimum Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3 Evo brought down the Italian’s advantage but the first 10 minutes concluded with Adam getting into the Aston with 0.772sec in hand over everyone else.

Tillbrook’s co-driver Marvin Kirchhöfer took that as a personal challenge. With Pro laps initially going in at the 2m16sec mark, it seemed as though there’d be no real challenge for pole. The German, though, lit up the timing screens with a 2m15.692sec – by far the fastest time of the session. 

That took the deficit down to just 0.105sec, but with scorching temperatures it was hard to find much more life to get out of the Pirelli rubber – Kirchhöfer couldn’t improve his own time and with Adam managing to squeeze a bit more out of the Vantage the end result was a front-row split by what seemed to be a gaping 0.289sec but a narrow margin considering what had come in the first 10 minutes. 

Third proved to be a back-and-forth affair that eventually went the way of Orange Racing by JMH. With Orange and Tse setting near-enough the same time in their session, it was up to Marcus Clutton and Maxi Götz to make the difference.

At first, it was advantage Mercedes as Götz went third, but was knocked off the perch by Clutton. Next lap round and the German squeaked ahead again but Clutton’s penultimate lap was enough to go third by just over a tenth of a second and take a positive result for a team that is getting quicker and quicker as the season continues.

Behind the battling pair, was Hugo Cook and Rob Collard in the #1 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 in what was a solid but under-the-radar session for the duo as the Lamborghini seems to be struggling to match the exact pace of the McLarens and Aston Martins ahead.

Sixth, also not quite hitting the pace needed, was the championship leading 2 Seas machine of Charles Dawson and Kiern Jewiss who are right in the chaos zone 1.6sec off the pace of the pole-sitters. Immediately behind them is the second Barwell entry of Alex Martin – joined by Patrick Kujala for this weekend as Sandy Mitchell races in IMSA’s Six Hours of Watkins Glen – and the second Optimum McLaren of Matt Topham and Callum Macleod.

After their pace in the first two sessions, it was a bit of disappointing qualifying for Beechdean Motorsport as Tom Wood and Andrew Howard finished 12th in class but pole in the Silver-Am category. They were more than a second clear of the Bridger Motorsport Honda NSX which was going great on the long straights of Sector One, but struggling in the twistier middle section. 

GT4

Sometimes, when a team takes on a new car in mid-season, it takes a while for team and drivers to settle into the new machinery and work out how to get the best out of it.

Not so for Mahiki Racing. Switching from a mid-engined Lotus to a front-engined Ginetta G56 GT4 Evo, Josh Miller and Jack Mitchell stormed to pole position, leaving their rivals in their wake. 

Miller went up first and his opening lap of a 2m27.493sec was comfortably clear of the rest of a field near-enough powerless to respond – only Harry George in the Optimum McLaren Artura could come remotely close but a deficit of 1.314sec showcased just how much Miller’s effort was a class apart from everyone else in GT4. 

Behind, teams could only look on as first drivers looked to salvage the best times possible. After a crash at Oulton Park last time out, Ravi Ramyead put the Century Motorsport BMW M4 GT4 Evo into a good position with the third fastest time in the opening session and gave co-driver Charlie Robertson a handy few-tenths of breathing space over championship leader Marc Warren heading into the second session.

That second session proved to be something of an anti-climax. There was a bit of drama initially as Mitchell had his first lap deleted for track limits at Blanchimont which gave Robertson provisional pole for a few minutes but Mitchell’s next lap – in the 2m17.1sec bracket – was enough to confirm the Ginetta back on the pole by 1.7sec. 

Behind, Robertson was going strong but would need some sort of miracle from the BoP gods to try and snatch first away. He took a rather lonely second, four tenths clear of a second-row lock out for Optimum Motorsport as George and Luca Hopkinson qualified ahead of teammates Warren and Jack Brown by more than half-a-second. 

There was another 0.5sec gap to fifth – the second Century BMW of Chris Salkeld and Branden Templeton – while sixth-placed Seb Morris and Ed McDermott were almost two seconds off the back of the BMW and more than five seconds off pole in their Team Parker Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4.

The two other Mahiki Racing Ginettas finished seventh and ninth – Blake Angliss and Steven Lake bettering Joe Wheeler and Ian Duggan. Sandwiched in the middle of the pair was the second Team Parker entry of Phil Keen and Jon Currie.

British GT’s 180-minute Spa spectacular gets underway at 12.30 local time, 11.30 in the UK – you’ll be able to watch it all live on GT REPORT, just click onto the home page or go to gt.report/watchlive.