Barwell Motorsport’s Phil Keen continued the Lamborghini crew’s good start to the British GT Championship season opener at Oulton Park as he dominated Free Practice Two.
The start of the session in what became a sunny Oulton Park after the rain of this morning was stopped as soon as it started after Liam Griffin – in the second Barwell Lamborghini Huracan GT3 – ended up in the barriers at Island Bend. The five minute red flag allowed Griffin to take the lightly damaged Huracan back to the pits with pride mostly intact.
Just after the track went green again, Keen unleashed his rapid lap of 1:34.291 to initially put himself lengths ahead of the competition.
The rest of the session was run generally without incident as the GT3 competitors set about trying to knock the Demon Tweeks-sponsored racer off the top spot.
Seb Morris would run it close in the Team Parker Racing Bentley Continental GT3 as he set a 1:34.421 and Sam Tordoff would finish third after knocking in a late quick lap after Liam Griffin carried on his early running after the team quickly repaired the Lamborghini.
Jon Barnes would finish 0.01s behind Tordoff in the #11 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage but a full 0.390s ahead of Callum Macleod and Ian Loggie in the second Team Parker Bentley.
In GT4, last year’s star pairing Ciaran Haggerty and Sandy Mitchell set the pace in the Black Bull Garage 59 McLaren 570S. A 1:43.458 put the Scottish crew one tenth up on Ginetta Factory driver Mike Simpson, racing the Century Motorsport Ginetta G55 GT4.
Behind was another Ginetta, this the Lanan Racing machine piloted into third by Alex Reed. In fourth was David Pattison, carrying on the good form he showed in FP1 in the Tolman Motorsport McLaren.
Of note, it was another difficult session for AutoAid/RCIB Insurance Racing as Sam Webster curtailed what was generally a good run for him as he spun into the barriers at Druids.
Garage 59 logged a good run in GT4 to claim top spot in class (Credit: Nick Smith/TheImageTeam.com)
