The Team Parker Racing Bentley Continental GT3 of Rick Parfitt and Seb Morris led a much shortened free practice one at the British GT Championship’s annual away day at Spa-Francorchamps.
Just as teams were getting into their groove, two red flags in relatively quick succession meant the sessions suffered numerous delays and was ultimately ended with more than 20 minutes to go as track staff set about repairing barrier damage because of an incident involving the #17 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage, the sister #24 Team Parker Racing Bentley and the #135 Swiss Team Maserati GT MC GT4.
The Maserati had dropped oil on the track at the end of Kemmel Straight and before they had time to react, Derek Johnston and Callum MacLeod – in the Aston and Bentley respectively – span on the oil and hit the barriers either side of the straight just before Les Combes.
Thankfully, everyone concerned was reported to be fine but – especially in the case of the TF Sport Aston – there’ll be a lot of work to put in before the cars are ready to take on qualifying this afternoon.
Back on track, the speed initially favoured the Lamborghini runners with the two Barwell Motorsport cars running first and second for a time with Phil Keen leading from Alexander Sims. They didn’t enjoy their time in the sun for long though as Seb Morris knocked in a 2:20.141 to go fastest by four-tenths.
In GT4, it was the Black Bull Ecurie Ecosse McLaren 570S of Ciaran Haggerty and Sandy Mitchell that claimed top spot with a 2:33.651 to put himself 2.1 seconds – and a number of Competition102 GT4 European Series entries – ahead of the Century Motorsport Ginetta G55 GT4 of Nathan Freke and Anna Walewska.
The second British GT free practice session is scheduled to take place at 12:25 local time.
