Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam of Beechdean AMR both put in feisty laps, securing GT3 pole position for their #7 Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 ahead of the opening round of the 2021 Intelligent Money British GT Championship. In GT4, the top spot on the grid went to Century Motorsport‘s #57 BMW M4 GT4 Evo as both Will Burns and Gus Burton led their qualifying sessions to a dominating pole.
GT3
Changes to the overall class structures sees the Silver/Silver class ejected from GT3 in favour of the new Silver/Am class with the intention being to bring the focus of the championship back towards the customer aspect of racing, and effectively evening out the class a little. Knowing we still have some very quick Ams taking part though meant qualification was open for the taking!
Qualifying session 1 was for the lower graded driver of the pairing, and saw a lot of change through the session. Team Abba Racing‘s Richard Neary was first to top the table in the #8 Mercedes-AMG for mere seconds before Morgan Tillbrook usurped the top spot in the bright orange Enduro Motorsport #77 McLaren 720S GT3. This too was short lived as Michael Igoe‘s flying lap in the WPI Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo took first place honours as Howard also put in a lap that was just shy of Igoe’s time to take P2 ahead of the previous leaders.
Kelvin Fletcher in the JRM Racing #11 Bentley Continental put in a decent show as well after a year away from the championship, getting into 5th position before being pushed down the rankings by Adam Balon‘s ascent up into P2 in the #1 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo. It was far from over, though, and the last two and a half minutes became even more of switch around, as Leo Machitski came storming into P2 in the #63 just five thousandths behind Igoe’s leading time.
As the chequered flag was flown we saw Igoe in the lead with an impressive 1:26:019 followed by Machitski’s #63 0.053s behind. The Beechdean AMR #7 of Andrew Howard had improved to take P3 just 0.176s behind Igoe, with the #11 of Kelvin Fletcher also improving to take P4 ahead of Adam Balon’s Barwell Lamborghini in P5.
Having built a solid foundation in the first session, it was then the turn of the higher graded drivers. As Brands Hatch is an endurance race the combined times of the pairings are used to set the final positions for the two hour main event. Jonny Adam was first to the top of the table, as the first flying laps were completed, setting the scene for the end result. Both Martin Plowman and Scott Malvern had their first lap times deleted as a result of track limits infringements, so it was still quite open, but Phil Keen in the #18 quickly rose to the challenge to take P2, though Marcus Clutton managed to sneak ahead by a tenth of a second pushing Keen to P3 just as the session ended.
Adam’s lap time of 1:23.763s meant that the #7 Beechdean AMR went top in combined qualifying, 0.189s ahead of the WPI Motorsport #18 of Igoe and Keen. Third on the grid went to Machitski and Lind in the Barwell Motorsport #63 a tenth behind, with the Bentley Continental GT3 of Fletcher and Plowman ahead of the second Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini of Balon and Sandy Mitchell in fifth.
GT4
The GT4 class has not been subjected to the same changes as GT3, so the first qualifying session was a mix of lower graded and nominated drivers from the Silver/Silver pairings on the grid. Absent from the sessions was the Team Rocket RJN #3 car which had suffered an issue during the earlier free practice. Word from the paddock was they were hopeful it would be in a position to start from the back of the grid on race day, but wouldn’t be fixed yet.
From the start of the first session, it was very close between the Academy Motorsport #61 Ford Mustang GT4 of Matt Cowley, and Will Burns in the #57 BMW M4 GT4 Evo for Century Motorsport as both drivers earned purple sectors, with Burns just edging ahead by 0.048s initially. There was stiff competition for P3 as well with Steller Motorsport‘s 42, the Assetto Motorsport #56 and the Team Rocket RJN #2 all taking the spot throughout the session. With a minute to go, the Toyota Gazoo Racing UK #15 of John Ferguson had improved into fourth place, just seconds before Chris Salkeld in the #9 Century BMW pushed them down to fifth.
Burns managed to eke a little more of a gap between himself and Cowley, who having pushed hard to make up the time had a lap disallowed due to track limits, and at the end of the session was just 0.15s down on Burns’ 1:32.064 lap. Mark Sansom put in a great foundation for the second session in the Assetto Motorsport Ginetta G56, half a second behind, with the second Century Motorsport BMW #9 taking fourth spot. The Toyota Gazoo Racing UK #15 of John Ferguson took fifth spot, and the #2 Team Rocket RJN McLaren 570S with James Kell rounded out the top six in this session.
The second qualifying session started similarly to the previous one, with the battle for the top being very close between the Academy Motorsport Mustang, this time with Will Moore at the wheel, and Gus Burton in the Century Motorsport #57. Burton again put the #57 on the top of the table, while Andrew Gordon-Colebrooke in the second Century BMW was pushing the #9 hard taking P4.
Charlie Robertson in the Assetto Motorsport Ginetta G56 kept everyone on edge throughout the ten minute session, as he put through a quick lap, which was just as quickly deleted, only to do the same thing again! Bated breath saw the third lap time posted stay on the screens, taking that car into third in the session. Meanwhile, the Toyota Supra GT4 of Scott McKenna put in an absolutely stunning lap to propel the #15 to 2nd in the leaderboard. Consistently improving times from Gordon-Colebrooke, Jordan Collard in the #2 Team Rocket RJN and Jake Giddings‘ #25 Mercedes-AMG GT4 of Car Gods with Cicely Motorsport saw the Academy Mustang being pushed down the ranks towards an eventual 7th place finish with Moore looking as if he was struggling with the car a little.
All was not lost for the Mustang however, as qualifying on combined times meant that while the Century Motorsport #57 of Burns and Burton dominated the pole with a lead of 0.897s over the second placed Assetto Motorsport #56 Ginetta G56 of Sansom and Robertson, Cowley’s impressive run during the first session saw the Academy Motorsport #61 in third place just 0.003s behind second spot.
The speedy second run for the ‘#15 saw the Toyota Gazoo Racing UK of Ferguson and McKenna take fourth place on the grid, ahead of the #9 Century Motorsport BMW of Salkeld and Gordon-Colebrook. The #2 McLaren of Team Rocket RJN pairing of Kell and Collard took P6 with 1.82s separating the top 6 ahead of the race.
