Title contenders Sandy Mitchell and Rob Collard have put themselves in the prime position to take the Intelligent Money British GT championship by securing pole position for tomorrow’s Silverstone 500, in a session where all four of the championship contenders occupied the top five places.
Collard was fastest of all in the first qualifying session which allowed Mitchell’s sixth fastest time in session 2 to secure the fastest combined time to give the #78 Barwell Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan pole by 0.573 seconds.
Despite the advantage of pole position Mitchell and Collard will have their three other title rivals for close company as championship leaders Sam de Haan/Patrick Kujala line up in third place, followed by James Baldwin/Michael O’Brien in fourth and Barwell Motorsport team-mates Phil Keen/Adam Balon in fifth place.
Yet the advantage lies with Collard/Mitchell as Keen/Balon and de Haan/Kujala will have to serve 20 and 10 second pitlane penalties during their final pitstops something which does not apply to the polesitters.
While Baldwin/O’Brien will not have to serve one either, they will need to win and hope that ill-fortune strikes their rivals in order to take the crown.
The interloper in the top five in the leading Pro-Am entry of Yelmer Buurman/Ian Loggie who will start second.
The #6 RAM Racing Mercedes has been quick throughout practice and the experienced driver pairing will be hoping to take at least one victory where despite being one of the quickest combinations all season, luck has not favoured them.
Former F1 Champion Jenson Button will line up 18th on the grid in the #3 Jenson Team Rocket RJN McLaren he shares with old friend Chris Buncombe.
Elsewhere, Lucky Khera and Ross Wylie combined to give Simon Green Motorsport’s Ferrari a GTC class pole position.
In GT4, Sam Smelt and James Kell managed to secure the combined pole position for tomorrow’s race to take their first pole of the season, after Smelt snatched pole on his final lap.
The #23 Speedworks Toyota Supra has showed plenty of pace and potential in its debut season but not the luck to secure victory this season.
Kell and Smelt are hoping their pole position will be the perfect springboard for breaking that curse tomorrow, especially as unlike their closest rival, the #97 TF Sport Aston Martin of championship leaders Jamie Caroline/Daniel Vaughan, they won’t have a success penalty to serve.
Despite coming up short in qualifying Caroline/Vaughan were easily the fastest of the championship rivals as their nearest rivals their TF Sport team-mates Connor O’Brien/Patrick Kibble and the HHC Motorsports McLaren of Patrik Matthiesen/Jordan Collard line up on sixth and seventh on the grid respectively, their combined times were two seconds slower than the championship leader.
