George Gamble snared both pole positions on offer from the qualifying session for the Protyre Motorsport Ginetta GT5 Challenge at Rockingham.
He set his best lap of 1:37.531 at the half way point of the 20 minute session, pushing Mark Davies back to second having held provisional pole since the first flying laps of the session. Davies – in an Optimum Motorsport run G40 – set about cutting into the seven tenths of a second buffer Gamble had given himself.
Davies was the first to join Gamble the low side of the 1:38 line, cutting the difference to Gamble to less than half a second before Gary Simms lead-frogged into second place, further slicing into Gamble’s gap in the process.
Davies did retake second, then launch a challenge for pole position lapping to within two hundredths of Gamble’s time – at that point a well-established marker in the session. However, a track limits infringement saw Davies’ best lap expunged from the record, Simms copping the same penalty during the session.
Fortunately another lap – a 1:37.591 just six tenths slower than Gamble’s pole – kept Davies second fastest with Simms third fastest. Oliver Chadwick was fourth fastest, the top four locking up the same places for the weekend’s second race – where the grid is decided by the second fastest laps of the session.
Over the matter of fifth place the two grids diverge, Dennis Strandberg to start fifth for the first encounter, Callum Pointon taking the place in the second race.
Stuart Pearson claimed the G20 class pole for both races, Alexander Preston due to start second in class for both races.
The grid for the third race of the weekend is set by the finishing order of the second race.
