After a damp Thursday morning at Donington Park, the weather cleared up, allowing drivers to push in their first public test of the cars this season.
At the end of the day it was the #7 Team Parker Racing driven by Ian Logge and Callum Macleod who came out on top overall. While in GT4, it was a Century Motorsport domination, with the #43 BMW M4 leading the #44 four tenths behind.
This season is set for a capacity grid, with thirty-six entries announced this morning. The field has also seen an increase in teams, with seven manufacturers and nine different outfits filling the thirteen car GT3 grid. Similar diversity has been seen in GT4 with eight different manufacturers making an appearance.
Wet weather reduced teams chances of any productive running with ERC Sport leading the way after the first hour-long session. GT4 benefited from these conditions, with the seventh placed GT4 team recording a faster time than the sixth fastest GT3.
Running would get better as the day went on though and it was the #7 Bentley Continental GT3, with Team Parker Racing who topped the first representative session in the early afternoon. The sun had finally come out and Barwell Motorsport returned to their typical second position, with the #2 Lamborghini Hurican going second.
This joy soon turned into dismay for the team though, with the car crashing while on a hot lap and cutting their second session and thus the day short. ERC would continue their strong run of form, going third, albeit over half a second off the pace.
In the final afternoon session, the air was cooler, but with the track and cars still warm, times dropped, with Team Parker shaving almost a second off of their benchmark earlier in the day. It was an impressive improvement from a team that had sat out all of the morning session.
Finally, GT4 the top three remained the same from the second to third session as the #43 Century Motorsport car dominated the opposition and shaving another three tenths off their time. Their main competition remained the #4 Tolman Motorsport McLaren 570S, with both Michael O’Brien and Charlie Fagg setting the pace.
