British GT

Beechdean go fastest in first British GT practice

2 Mins read

Beechdean Aston Martin has gone fastest in the first Avon Tyres British GT Championship practice session at Snetterton after dominating most of the session.

Jonny Adam wasted no time showing the strength of the car with an opening lap of 1:50.827 putting the Vantage straight to the top of time sheets.

Initially, he was followed by Joe Osborne in the #888 Tripe Eight BMW Z4 who found himself only a tenth or two behind the Scotsman and hoping to keep pace.

In the opening salvo for GT4, the ISSY Racing Lotus Evora laid down an early marker to their championship rivals with a time of 1:59.879 to become the only car in class to get under the two minute barrier.

Quarter of the way into the main session, not including the 20 minute bronze session at the end – more on that later, Phil Keen showed the BMWs could be incredibly strong this weekend as he jumped above Matt Bell in the TF Sport Aston Martin into third place. Bell would then strike back with a 1:50.561 to move himself up to second, but Keen would go six hundredths faster and find himself in the lead.

That seemed to flick a switch in Adam’s mind as he hit back with a 1:50.470 to move himself back to the top with a time that wouldn’t be beaten for the remainder of the session.

Going past the halfway point of the first session, the two biggest movers were Adam Carroll in the FF Corse Ferrari and Alexander Sims in the Ecurie Ecosse BMW. They would put in times good enough for fifth and sixth in class as the flag fell.

BritishGT_MountNorfolk-2318

Gavan Kershaw and Oz Yusuf showed the Lotus has pace in its own backyard (Credit: Nick Smith/TheImageTeam.com)

In the dying minutes of the first session in GT4, Graham Johnson in the PMW Expo Racing Ginetta would find himself the closest opposition to a Lotus which had been handed over from Gavan Kershaw to Oz Yusuf.

Slightly further down the order, championship contenders Ross Gunn and Jamie Chadwick in the ‘baby’ Beechdean found themselves in fifth place with a 2:00.698 and in a good position for further pushes up the grid.

With the main session over, it was time for the bronze drivers to get some extra track time and unfortunately for them their session was disrupted majorly as a red flag came out because of Jon Minshaw hitting the barriers hard at Agostini in the #63. Reports suggest that he ran straight on, couldn’t slow on the wet grass, and hit the barriers.

Thankfully he was fine but it meant there was a significant delay to proceedings. As the session restarted for ten minutes, the biggest improver was Rick Parfitt in the #44 Ginetta he is sharing with Ryan Ratcliff this weekend who logged a time of 1:53.188 to claim 15th in class.

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3rd Year Multimedia Journalism Student at Teesside University, interested in motorsport and writing about it as well. I'm also a qualified pilot but I don't mention that much.
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