Aston Martin teams carried on their good form at Snetterton in the Avon Tyres British GT Championship as Jody Fannin in the #27 TF Sport Vantage went under the 1:50s to set the fastest time so far this weekend.
Initially it was Matt Bell in another Aston, the #17 TF Sport sister car, who set the early pace after logging a 1:50.298.
Directly behind, Alexander Sims in the Ecurie Ecosse BMW and Jon Barnes in the 22GT Aston Martin squabbled for a time over second place with Barnes taking the upper hand over the BMW.
It was at this point that Fannin clocked his absolute screamer. Near enough out of nowhere his time of 1:49.659 sent him shooting to the top with more than seven tenths in hand over the #17 – which had been handed over to Derek Johnston.
At the halfway point of the 50 minute session, another big mover was Salih Yoluc in the #12 VonRyan Racing McLaren. He was just over a tenth behind Jon Barnes and Marco Attard and less than two tenths behind third placed Jonny Adam in the #007.
In GT4 it was David Pattison who had the halftime lead in the Tolman Motorsport Ginetta, with a handy gap over Oz Yusuf in the #77 ISSY Racing Lotus which was carrying on where it left off in FP1.
At this point it is worth noting that the #63 Demon Tweeks BMW wasn’t out for this session. The damage caused by what turned out to be brake failure in the first practice session was still being fixed throughout this session.
Elsewhere on track, Andrew Watson in the other VonRyan McLaren jumped up to third place with twenty minutes to go after setting a 1:50.591. Sadly for him, he was soon knocked down to fourth as Sims blasted into second place with a 1:49.911, which he improved on a few laps later to log 1:49.725.
On the move in GT4 was James Nash in the Lotus he was sharing with Richard Taffinder. Starting from quite low down the GT4 field, he first jumped to fifth place and then to third in the space of ten minutes to show that the Lotus cars could be ones to watch in qualifying and the race.
As the flag flew at the end of 50 minutes, erstwhile leader Pattison found himself bumped to second by Gavan Kershaw who broke the two minute barrier with a 1:59.919. As mentioned, Nash was third, Rob Garofall was fourth in the University of Bolton Ginetta, and Mike Robinson in the PMW Expo Racing Ginetta was fifth.
In the top class, five of the top eight cars were Aston Martins with Fannin leading from Sims, who himself led from Johnston and Wylie. In fifth was the Beechdean car, with Mark Farmer, Salih Yoluc and Ahmad Al Harthy rounding out the top eight.