TF Sport’s Jonny Adam and Derek Johnston topped the timesheets as they secured first position at the end of the second one-hour British GT Championship practice session at Rockingham.
Initially it was Johnston, the Am in the Pro-Am relationship, to set the first quick time for that car in the session as he logged a 1:18.629 in the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 to close within seven-hundredths of a second on Ryan Ratcliffe who was the early pacesetter in the AmDTuning.com Mercedes-AMG GT3.
Before times could improve too much, there were two red flags in relatively quick succession as first the Macmillan AMR Aston Martin Vantage GT4 went off in the gravel and then the #29 In2Racing McLaren 570S had an experience with the barriers on the exit of the Deene Hairpin to interrupt Free Practice Two somewhat.
Before the second red flag, Liam Griffin’s Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 managed to sneak up to the top of the times with a time 0.083s faster than Ratcliffe.
When the track went green again for the final time, the pros got behind the wheel for a qualifying run to end the session and that allowed Adam – and his TF Sport team-mate Jon Barnes – to assume first and third respectively with the reigning champion setting a 1:17.885 to be the only driver in the 1:17s during the session.
Sandwiched between the Astons was Sam Tordoff who took over from Griffin in the Lamborghini. His time of 1:18.470 was hundredths ahead of Barnes but more than half-a-second down on the #1.
For the second Barwell Lamborghini of Phil Keen and Jon Minshaw, they didn’t get to go out in the session as their car needed a full engine replacement.
In GT4, it was once again the PMW Expo Racing Ginetta G55 of Mike Robinson and Graham Johnson who finished at the head of the field with their time of 1:23.544 again underneath last year’s lap record.
Behind them was another Ginetta, the Lanan Racing machine of Alex Reed and David Pittard. Reed clocked a time of 1:23.827 to finish just under two-tenths ahead of the fastest McLaren 570S, the #56 of Joe Osborne and Tolman Motorsport.
A touch further behind in fourth was Martin Plowman, once again demonstrating the speed of the UltraTek Racing Team RJN Nissan 370Z as he set a 1:24.110.