Matt Chapman took his first Ginetta GT5 Challenge pole position of the year beating his rivals by nearly half a second. The Silverstone circuit was packed as 39 cars from GT5 Pro / Am / GRDC+ took to the track determined to find track space.
The session started in dramatic fashion as Ollie Chadwick suffered fuel pump issues on his opening lap before he could set a competitive lap time. The championship leader will be forced to start the first race from the back of the grid as he was unable to set a lap time.
This left the rest of the field to fight amongst themselves as Chapman took the advantage in the early stages. He pushed on managing to pull out a second gap to J Hadfield and Jack Minshaw behind.
As the session drew on, Matt Flowers closed the gap, going second. It was clear that Chapman was struggling to set significantly faster times with J Hadfield being the the first driver to better him that session. Both drivers continued to tussle for pole with the time ticking down, allowing them to break away from the field behind.
As the flag dropped, it was J Hadfield who claimed pole in front of Chapman with a time of 2:27.486. A shock final lap from GT5 Am driver Ian Robinson saw him leap up to third, only 0.2 seconds off Chapman’s front row time, Flowers ended up settling for fourth.
While he’d remained competitive throughout, Ryan Hadfield was unable join his R+J Motorsport team mate at the top and was forced to settle for fifth, demoting Jack Minshaw to sixth. In GRDC+ Richard Evans eventually took pole, lining up seventeenth overall and giving him the perfect opportunity to extend his championship lead.
