Tim Harvey continued his practice form after taking a double pole position for the opening races of the 2010 Porsche Carrera Cup GB series.
With the weather conditions far from ideal, qualifying got underway on a wet Thruxton circuit with Tom Bradshaw shooting to the top of the times, holding pole position for much of the session. Unfortunately for the JHR run youngster the seasoned pro and 2008 champion Tim Harvey put in a near perfect lap (for the conditions), taking top spot by just six-thousands of a second.
It wasn’t all easy for Harvey though “It was tight,” he admitted. “I knocked the front splitter off on the first run and I was concerned about missing the best of the conditions.” Harvey went on to talk about the race tomorrow saying that the team will have their work cut out for a race setup if the weather is dry as predicted.
Tom Bradshaw was delighted with his second place time, “That’s better,” he said “It was that greasy that slicks were never an option.” Although there were some that tried slicks, the times proved Bradshaw to be right, with a huge gap to the times set on wet tyres.
Newmarket based Michael Caine struggled in the opening stages of the session after admitting he started the session on worn wet tyres. “It probably should have been new wets,” he said later. Despite the early problems the Motorbase driver still managed third place on the the grid ahead of Euan Hankey in his Team Parker Racing Porsche.
Pro-Am 1 is set up for a great battle between Ollie Jackson and Porsche Carrera Cup GB debutant Ahmad Al-Harthy with the two finishing the session first and second respectivly, Jackson admitted he felt he could of performed better “I’m a bit disappointed not to be further up overall”. Al-Harthy, who set impressive times during practice yesterday continued his good form to grab second spot ahead of another GB debutant Jonas Gelzinis in the Lithuanian Juta Racing Porsche. Archie Hamilton and Tony Gilham round out the top 5 in the Pro-Am 1 class.
Paul Mace also did the double, taking two first places in the Pro-Am 2 class after a Jenson Button-esque decision with the tyres “I could see that the rain was easing, so I came in, cooled the tyres and went again”. George Richardson, Steve Parish and Glenn McMenamin followed Mace closely on the time sheets.
With dry weather predicted tomorrow it will make for an interesting race for the first corner, will Harvey do it or will Bradshaw pip him to the first corner? We will have to wait and see!
