Ben Barnicoat and Morgan Tillbrook topped both of the opening British GT Championship practice sessions at Brands Hatch as the Optimum Motorsport duo fired a warning shot to their title rivals that the pair are on fine form in their McLaren 720S GT3 Evo.
Fellow title battlers Orange Racing and Barwell Motorsport also appeared toward the top of the times, in a pair of sessions decided by fine margins and generating no shortage of intrigue ahead of Qualifying later on Saturday.
It was almost the opposite in GT4, as the title contenders tended to sit more toward the middle-to-lower reaches of the class times whilst both sessions were instead topped by the Paddock Motorsport McLaren Artura of Blake Angliss and Revie Lake.
Free Practice
British GT practice sessions are normally a quiet affair, save for the odd incident here or there, but with a title on the line and almost half the grid up for one championship or another, it was no wonder that the morning’s first running was even quieter than usual as teams focused on race pace and ensuring their cars were on point for Sunday’s crucial race.
In the early running it was probably no surprise that one of the first pace-setters was Marcus Clutton in the Orange Racing by JMH McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, who had spent last weekend racing around the exact same Brands Hatch circuit in the Audi R8 he shares with Peter Erceg in GT Cup.
But as the session got underway fully, the times from the rest of the GT3 field started to improve too and it was a sign of just how close things will be this weekend that all 11 GT3 runners were within 1.111sec come the chequered flag, with the only car outside the one-second window being the Porsche of Mark Smith and Martin Plowman. Even then you can cut them some slack as they continue to adapt to the 911 GT3 R Evo after years racing in McLarens.
Back to the front, though, and it was becoming clear that it was probably a McLaren you wanted, certainly in the ages at least. Optimum Motorsport’s pair of examples were right up at the sharp-end of the timing sheets as Callum Macleod and then Ben Barnicoat started setting some rapid pace, the latter having a good back-and-forth with Clutton as the pair traded fastest times, with Clutton just about coming up ahead in the first half of the 60-minute session.
For a time, things settled down but within the final 20 minutes thing started to spark up a little as the Ams gave way to the Pros for a last blast to the flag and Charles Clark, in the Century Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 Evo that has come alive these last few rounds, who squeaked his way to the top of the standings by just 0.001sec.
It seemed as though that’s how the session would end, with not even the blink of an eye separating the top two. But then Barnicoat got behind the wheel and rung the neck of the machine currently lying second in the championship. Whilst you can hardly describe his 1m23.924sec as going clear of the competition in any true sense of the word, his 0.023sec advantage was a chasm compared to some of the other margins a little further down the order.
Behind the top three, Kevin Tse and Chris Lulham were three-tenths back in their Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, with Ross Gunn and Andrew Howard the next of the title contenders in fifth, just 0.003sec ahead of Macleod in their Beechdean AMR Aston Martin Vantage.
When you describe championship leaders Rob Collard and Hugo Cook as being in seventh, you assume they had a bit of a tricky session and that there’s work to be done in the Barwell Motorsport garage ahead of Pre-Qualifying, but when you consider the Lamborghini was only 0.570sec off the fastest time, everything falls back into reality.
They did pip the sister Huracán GT3 Evo2 by 0.252sec in what could well be the swan-song for the car in British GT this weekend, with Jarrod Waberski and Alex Martin finishing the opening running in eighth, 0.008sec ahead of the second 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes which is being driven by Aaron Walker and new team-mate Todd Kingsford, who comes into British GT from a title-winning season in Lamborghini Super Trofeo Asia.
Marc Warren and Jack Brown took tenth in their Optimum McLaren, whilst Paddock Motorsport rounded out the GT3 field in their Porsche.
GT4 was no less tight, and equally as calm, as teams worked through set-ups and run plans. In terms of a renaissance, you can’t look too far past Revie Lake and Blake Angliss. The pair look reborn in their McLaren Artura having moved from Mahiki Racing to Paddock Motorsport, and prevailed in a pendulum-like battle with Jack Mitchell in the Toro Verde GT Ginetta G56 GT4 Evo to finish the session on top.
Their 1m31.435sec was 0.009sec quicker than Mitchell’s best effort, but it was only thanks to traffic that the pair weren’t completely usurped by Optimum’s George Gamble. Sharing with Josh Stanton this weekend, who has a mathematical if not particularly realistic chance of the GT4 crown, Gamble was on a fine run at the end of the session as he vaulted up to third, before the narrow nature of the Grand Prix loop denied him the opportunity to close in any further than 0.123sec down.
Speaking of the title fight, none of the contenders were up in the top four, as Ian Duggan and Tom Bradshaw took the fourth spot, ahead of the joint-championship leading Ginetta of Tom Holland and Hadley Simpson.
Although you could argue they were just the head of the championship train, as the rest of the title rivals were immediately behind them and covered by less than 0.170sec as the MK Racing Aston of Jessica Hawkins/Will Orton, the Vantage of Darren Turner/Daniel Lavery, and the BMW of Branden Templeton and Jack Collins were all within the same sort of times – an intriguing prospect ahead of qualifying.
Pre-Qualifying
Lunch time’s Pre-Qualifying session proved more exciting, as teams set aside race runs for a time to get down to the business of prepping for a Qualifying session that is even more crucial thank usual; the Brands Hatch circuit isn’t the easiest to overtake, so you need to get yourself toward the sharp-end of the field.
That explains the eagerness for the McLarens of Barnicoat and Jack Brown, and Waberski in his Lamborghini, to hit the ground running as they traded the fastest times as they got tyres up to temperature and themselves into the groove.
For the opening 15 or so minutes, they were going at a fair rate, but it was Barnicoat who struck the decisive blow with just under 20 minutes of the session completed as he set a 1m23.503sec to put himself out of reach of the competition – even with 40 minutes still to go.
Drivers did try to best his time, indeed toward the end of the running Chris Lulham got to within 0.182sec, but couldn’t quite find that last little bit to come out on top. Cook and Clutton were the only other two drivers to get within the 1m23sec bracket but, like Lulham, they couldn’t find those extra little bits of improvement to really try and challenge for the top spot, finishing third and fourth respectively.
Fifth went to Aaron Walker and Kingsford in their AMG, with Waberski and Martin unable to improve on their early pace as they finished 0.037sec down in sixth. Although, that could well have been seventh if Macleod was 1mph faster at any point on the circuit in the 720S, as he finished on a 1m24.052sec, 0.002sec slower than Waberski.
Of the other title contenders, Howard and Gunn, on the former’s final British GT race before retirement, finished 10th, 0.889sec off the pace in a slight odd session where their morning pace seemed to not quite be as present.
It was an even more extreme version of that in GT4, as only one of the championship contenders ended up in the top five and that was the Grange Racing by FSR Aston Martin driven by Darren Turner and Daniel Lavery which took second, 0.114sec behind the Paddock McLaren Artura as once again Lake and Angliss set the class pace.
Perhaps focusing more on pace during tomorrow’s 120-minute showdown, you had to go down to sixth to find Josh Stanton who was about half-a-second off the fastest lap, with Orton and Hawkins another couple of tenths behind, having gone ever so slightly faster than Century Motorsport pair Templeton and Collins.
Co-leaders Innovation Racing were 10th, the penultimate car on the timing sheet ahead of only James Townsend, who is running the entire weekend by himself in the Townsend Racing p/b Fox Motorsport Aston Martin.
In Pre-Qualifying itself, Colin Turkington showed he’s got pace around Brands as he took the WSR Flexifly BMW M4 GT4 Evo he shares with Ernie Graham up to third, a fraction ahead of the Jack Mitchell/Luke Shaw Toro Verde GT Ginetta.
