With a time set among the earliest flying laps of the session Richard Abra put the MP Motorsport AMR Aston Martin Vantage GT3 best of the Avon Tyres British GT Championship field in second practice at Rockingham.
Abra, who shares the #38 car with Mark Poole took the car around Rockingham’s International Long circuit layout in 1:23.060 in the opening minutes of the session, his lap 0.822 seconds faster than Matt Bell’s similarly early lap in the United Autosports Audi R8 LMS ultra.
Surprisingly both men’s early times stood up to examination through the rest of the session with only two other drivers coming within a second of Abra’s time as Phil Keen and Aaron Scott both made late improvements in the Trackspeed Porsche and AF Corse Ferrari respectively.
There were more late moves into (or up) the top ten by Alexander Sims and Jonny Adam, the Ecurie Ecosse BMW Z4 GT3 ending the session sixth fastest, the Beechdean AMR Vantage ninth ahead of the #4 Aston of Oman Racing Team that leads the championship coming into the Rockingham weekend.
Alex Buncombe’s lap in the first half of the session gave he and Chris Hoy the fifth best time of the session in the Nissan GT Academy Team RJN Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 and Luke Hines’ lap in the #888 Triple Eight Race Engineering BMW secured seventh fastest.
Following Paul White’s accident late in the opening session the Strata21 team did not take part in the session.
The lead of GT4 passed through the hands of Gavan Kershaw and Matt Draper before Dan Cammish set a 1:30.956 with ten minutes of the session remaining in the Team Parker Racing Porsche co-driven by Barrie Baxter.
Matt Draper’s 1:31.697 in Optimum Motorsport’s Ginetta G55 GT4 was second fastest, Kershaw third quickest in the ISSY Racing Lotus he shares with Oz Yusef.
Qualifying is scheduled for 3:45pm, the grid to be decided by the aggregate times of each team’s two drivers.
