Ollie Chadwick’s Xentek Motorsport Ginetta G40 has dominated the qualifying session for the first of three Protyre Motorsport Ginetta GT5 Challenge races at Snetterton. The #33 machine put in a time well over half a second faster than the best that series leader George Gamble could produce in the twenty minute session which started the days track action at the Norfolk circuit.
A 2:08.553 was the fastest time in the session, set in the dying minutes by Chadwick. 0.585 seconds behind came the Total Control Racing run points leader with Dennis Strandberg just a hundredth of a second further back. The top four drivers were all below the circuit lap record set by former champion and now Avon Tyres British GT Championship GT4 contender Oli Basey-Fisher.
Gary Simms from Buddy Racing took fourth in the session with Nick Firth’s Optimum Motorsport machine and Frederick Mortensen of Century run car in sixth. Gamble’s team mate Callum Pointon took seventh in the #7 G40 with Matthew Flowers for Academy Motorsport and Finlay Ratcliffe for Optimum in eighth and ninth. The top ten was rounded out by the second Buddy run machine, driven by Nick Zapolski.
In the G20 class the top spot went to Privateer racer Stuart Pearson. The aging G20s failed to best the standing lap record during qualifying but Pearson’s 2:14.988 was enough to secure the top spot by a staggering 0.802 seconds. Second in the class went to the Orwin run machine of Brian Murphey, who put his fastest lap in early in the session and held place to the end despite a late flyer from Alex Preston of Tolman Motorsport.
The first of the three Protyre Motorsport Ginetta GT5 Challenge races gets underway just after 14:00 this afternoon. Full coverage of the British Formula 3 / British GT race weekend at Snetterton is available on thecheckeredflag.co.uk.