GT4 Qualifying for the 3rd and 4th rounds of the 2019 British GT Championship at Snetterton has ended with a brace of Scott’s on pole. Scott Maxwell took pole for the first race in Am qualifying for Multimatic Motorsports while Scott Malvern piloted his Mercedes-AMG GT4 to pole in Pro qualifying, breaking the two year old qualifying record along the way.
GT4 Am Qualifying: Multimatic Take Third Pole in Three Races.
Multimatic Motorsports are celebrating the third pole position for their Ford Mustang GT4 campaign from three qualifying sessions. Scott Maxwell initially took the pole but in a difference to GT3 qualifying, the GT4 cars had a choice of laps on which to post their fastest time. The first flying lap from the Canadian set the initial pace but it was lap three of five which finally sealed the deal.
The #95 Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT4 of TF Sport, with Josh Price at the wheel knocked the Mustang back on its first attempt. The 1:57.824 only served to spur on the Multimatic man though and shortly after Maxwell found the 57.591 which would set the pole time for the ams.
A late run from the #29 Audi R8 LMS GT4 of Steller Performance would seal second place, Richard Williams setting the time on the last of his five laps in the session and demoting Price after the flag had been flown. The Vantage held out to start behind Maxwell on the grid for the first race tomorrow.
Far from the performance in practice, GT Marques struggled in their first qualifying session with their new 718 Cayman Clubsport GT4. The Porsche crew, with Chris Car at the wheel was one of four entries which lost its fastest lap time to track limits violations. Unfortunately for the new-commers, their second best time, a 2:03.194 wasn’t good enough and the car will start from the back of the grid for the race tomorrow.
It was a similar story in the Academy Motorsport pit where Alex Toth-Jones lost his fastest effort to track limits. The #62 will line up in 22nd place in class and on the inside of the back row for the first race. Century Motorsport‘s #43 and Tolman Motorsport‘s #4 were similarly pinged for limits but placed 12th and 5th respectively.
Credit: BritishGT.com/Jakob Ebrey Photography
GT4 Pro Qualifying: Record Breaking Scott Malvern Takes Pole for Race 2.
The final qualifying session of the day came and from the very first time to come through it was clear that the qualifying lap record was up for grabs. An opening gambit from the #77 Fox Motorsport Mercedes-AMG of Michael Broadhurst was quickly bettered by Tom Canning for TF Sport in the #97 Aston Martin.
Matthew George for Invictus Games Racing quicly set a 57.174, proving his FP2 topping pace wasn’t a fluke with second but the Jaguar F-Type SVR GT4 just couldn’t keep up with the Mercedes, Aston Martin, Porsche and McLaren compeittion and eventually the #44 dropped to ninth. The same was true for a while with Canning who was quickly dropped to second by HHC Motorsport thanks to Dean MacDonald. The #57 McLaren’s first flying lap was enough to give it provisional pole until Canning could complete another lap and improve upon it by just 0.082 of a second.
Then came Scott Malvern. Having taken a lap to bed in, his second gave the Mercedes third place on the grid and would still have given fourth at the end of the session. Not satisfied, Malvern dug deep and his third lap did the trick. A 1:56.589, beating the standing lap record for qualifying in GT4 cars by 0.121 seconds and sealing a front row start for the #66 on a track which really doesn’t favor the Benz.
The previous lap record, a 1:56.710, was set by Ross Gunn in the Beechdean AMR Aston Martin Vantage GT4 which took him and co-driver Jamie Chadwick to the 2015 GT4 championship title.
Scott Malvern told TheCheckeredFlag.co.uk, “I’m pleased obviously, its another pole and I’ve not had one for a while. That’s nice to get.
“Traditionally qualifying is stronger for us and the Mercedes which makes races a bit harder, especially the short ones. So we’ve done well today but points are tomorrow.
“Handling is our strong suit with the Mercedes, we are probably a bit down on power compared some of the other cars. For qualifying, you just make the most of the new tyres better than most of the other cars can. The stop start nature of this track isn’t ideal for us but we can make it up in the medium to high speed stuff of Corum, Bombhole and turn one.
“On new tyres we are strong, but we’re not sure what the race is going to bring. If we can get away at the front we will be fine, if we get drawn in to a race we could be in a bit of trouble.”
The first of tomorrow’s two races starts at 11:10 with the second at 15:25. Both races will be streamed live on BritishGT.com with full coverage from TheCheckeredFlag.co.uk.
