British GT Silverstone: Paradine and Innovation storm to 500 poles

Darren Leung and Dan Harper marked their one-off return to the British GT Championship by reminding everyone about their raw speed as they qualified their Paradine Competition BMW M4 GT3 on pole for the season-opening Silverstone 500.

In GT4, Tom Holland and Hadley Simpson helped Innovation Racing mark their British GT debut with an equally dominant run to class pole, aided by Holland’s scorching lap in his section of qualifying.

GT3

From the very start of Qualifying, Leung – who is racing in WEC and GT World Challenge Europe this year – laid down a marker as he and Harper start their quest for a third Silverstone 500 win.

His initial 1min58.881sec was already a formidable marker for the competition, and improved to a 1min58.709sec as he finished the session – leaving his Am rivals in the opening 10-minute session fighting over who could join them on the second-row.

In that first session, the main competition proved to be reigning champion Charles Dawson, and 2024 champion Rob Collard. Flying in their 2 Seas Mercedes and Barwell Lamborghini respectively, the pair could only finish second and third with the hope that their Pros could deliver a storming run.

Well, Harper is not a man to give anything less than 100% in everything he does – a mentality that has seen him win five of the nine races he’s competed in this season, including the Daytona 24 Hours – and his 1min57.611sec, whilst not the fastest lap of the session, allowed the pair to take their first Silverstone pole by 0.638sec.

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If it wasn’t for Leung’s mega opener, things could have been quite different. That’s because Ben Barnicoat was on another level if you break down the individual laps. Handed the Optimum McLaren 720S GT3 in fourth after a strong opening by Morgan Tillbrook, he set a 1min57.214sec to cut the deficit from over a second to that half-a-second deficit to Paradine. He’ll be one to watch once he gets behind the wheel in the race.

Third went to Collard and Hugo Cook in their Huracán. Having set the pace throughout the morning pretty much, the pair put in a solid pair of laps – Cook’s individual lap less than a tenth off Harper’s – but couldn’t quite dig as deep as the cars ahead as the track temperatures touched 38 degrees, a very rare thing on this island.

The one-off entry of Dawson and Kiern Jewiss took fourth, the latter was storming in their AMG but couldn’t quite hit the same heights as the competition, but did pip the sister 2 Seas entry of Jarrod Waberski and Alex Martin by 0.011sec.

Three McLarens filled the lower reaches of the top 10, headed by the Orange Racing with JMH entry of Simon Orange and Marcus Clutton – the pair giving themselves a good platform to build on during the race if they can get a bit of better luck than they’ve had in recent seasons.

Behind, is the reigning GT4 champions. Marc Warren and Jack Brown put in a good showing in their first GT3 qualifying session, almost half-a-second ahead of Yasser Shahin and Garnet Patterson in the guesting Optimum car normally shared by Callum Macleod and Mike Price.

Ross Gunn and Andrew Howard rounded out the top 10 in their first qualifying session since reuniting in the Beechdean AMR Aston Martin Vantage.

GT4

You don’t normally expect a debuting team, even one with as much GT experience as Innovation Racing, to absolutely storm their way to pole position. But then again, Tom Holland and Hadley Simpson aren’t scared of grabbing their Ginetta G56 GT4 Evo by the scruff of the neck and driving it as hard as they can.

It wasn’t immediately obvious, even to Holland, that their time would be so much better than the rest of the field. Initially, it was Ian Stanton, in the Toro Verde Porsche, and Jessica Hawkins in the MK Racing Aston Martin who were setting the pace. But then Holland clocked a 2min09.33sec to go almost three quarters of a second clear of the pack behind.

That was the basis for a remarkable second session, as Jack Mitchell got behind the wheel of Toro Verde’s Ginetta and took it to Innovation. He was remarkable in his run to a 2min08.601sec to put the car he shares with Luke Shaw to pole by a considerable margin. Simpson, then, had to dig deep, and whilst he couldn’t quite showcase the same pace as Mitchell, his 2min09.501sec was enough to snatch pole by 0.032sec.

Behind the all-Ginetta front-row, it was an Aston Martin lock out of the second, as Hawkins and Will Orton ensured they finished ahead of Grange Racing with FSR’s Daniel Lavery and Darren Turner with just 0.323sec separating them.

Fifth went to Luca Hopkinson and Josh Stanton in their Optimum Motorsport McLaren Artura, with Century Motorsport’s BMW M4 GT4 of Branden Templeton and Jack Collins adding some manufacturer variety to the sharp-end of the field.

After their performance earlier in the day, mechanical issues put pay to Mahiki Racing’s charge. Despite their best efforts, Blake Angliss and Revie Lake will have work to do from 11th in class.

The Silverstone 500 gets underway at 1pm UK time (2pm in Europe), with all three hours live on GT REPORT!