The MTECH duo of Matt Griffin and Duncan Cameron made the first steps towards taking the 2012 Avon Tyres British GT Championship title by setting the best lap in the first practice session at Donington Park.
The pair begin the final weekend with just a half point advantage over Alasdair McCaig, the Ecurie Ecosse driver reunited with Oliver Bryant in the BMW Z4 after Bryant missed the Snetterton and Silverstone rounds after a track day crash. However, the pair could only manage the 13th fastest lap in the hour long session.
The final timesheet was dominated by Ferrari, all three red 458 Italia finishing in the top six, the Rosso Verde car of Hector Lester and Allan Simonsen third fastest and Aaron Scott putting the Scuderia Vittoria car sixth fastest. Invading the prancing horse herd was the Reiter Engineering Lamborghini, Peter Kox second fastest in the car he shares with Nico Pronk for the weekend.
Jonny Adam was fourth fastest for Beechdean Motorsport while another visitior of the championship for the final round, in the shape of a second United Autosports McLaren MP4-12C was fifth fastest thanks to single-seater refugee Alvaro Parente, sharing the car with team co-owner Zak Brown.
The other McLaren in the team’s stable, in the hands of double winners Matt Bell and Charles Bateman, was the only absentee from the session out of the 26 car field, their car left in the garage with a fuel sensor problem. One of seven teams still mathematically capable of lifting the title this weekend the problem, now repaired, will not keep them out of the second session.
Seventh fastest was the car of David Ashburn, the title contender sharing with Phil Keen in the #31 Trackspeed Porsche. The Jones brothers’ Preci–Spark Mercedes lying driving the three Trackspeed runners, the #32 and #33 cars rounding out the top ten.
Daniele Perfetti and Michael Caine, fifth in the points coming into the weekend, were eleventh fastest for Motorbase Performance with the final one of the seven title contending teams – RJN Motorsport’s Alex Buncombe and Jann Mardenborough – a lowly 17th.
Already confirmed as class champions Team WFR led GT4 by nearly 1.5 seconds over the Jota run Mazda MX5.
