Sure is going to be an interesting race day tomorrow at Snetterton

Saturday, May 18, 2019

Some very interesting and jumbled sets of lap times have come out of the first day of track action at the second round of the British GT Championship from the Snetterton 300 race track in Norfolk today.

With eleven Aston Martin Racing cars again competing within the thirty six car grid spread across both GT3 and GT4 with the latter also being split between the Pro-Am and Silver Cup classes, early action within this mornings two Free Practice sessions saw some more early pace setting from the AMR teams.

On a greasy but drying track first thing this morning, it was the #2 TF Sport Vantage GT3 of Nicki Thiim and Mark Farmer who headed the timing screen with the #99 Beechdean AMR car of Marco Sorensen and Andrew Howard not far being in P3. In GT4, it was the #11 Beechdean AMR car of Martin Plowman and Kelvin Fletcher who were flying the flag with an overall P4 with the #97 TF Sport GT4 of Tom Canning and Ashley Hand again showing early pace.

As the track dried for the final Free Practice of the morning, again the #2 TF Sport car headed the AMR bunch and again just ahead of the #Beechdean AMR GT3 in P4 and P5 respectively. In GT4, whilst times had quickened - positions on the timing screen had dropped with the #97 again the fastest.

With Snetterton being another race double header, that obviously meant that each car's Pro and Am driver each submitted their own time to determine their respective starting position for each of tomorrows races.

For race 1 (with the amateurs starting), the #47 TF Sport GT3 of Graham Davidson and Jonny Adam will start form the second row of the grid in P3 having finished just 0.303 behind the pole setting BMW. The #96 Optimum GT3 of Ollie Wilkinson and Bradley Ellis is P6 with the #99 Beechdean AMR finally beating the #2 TF Sport to start race 1 in P11 and P12 respectively.

In GT4 Am Qualifying, it appears that circuit owner Jonathon Palmer's loathe of track limit abuse came very much into play with multiple laps times being removed by Race Control. The #95 TF Sport car of Patrick Kibble and Josh Price was not one of those for them to secure a P3 start in class eight places ahead of the next AMR in P11 with the #35 Optimum car of Connor O'Brien and Jack Butel.

For tomorrows second race, it will be the turn of the Pro drivers to take the start and it will be a return to the front for the #2 TF Sport car of AMR factory driver Nicki Thiim who claimed that accolade by just 0.055 of a second from the #72 Barwell Lambourghini. The teams sister #47 car starts P7 with Jonny Adam and the #99 Beechdean AMR of third AMR factory driver Marco Sorensen in P8. Bradley Ellis' #96 Optimum car completes the AMR grid in P11.

In the GT4 Pro class and with the exception of the #97 TF Sport car which starts in P2, if you want to see another Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4 then you will sadly need to look towards the rear of the grid with five AMR cars making up the final eight cars on grid. The issue here was that the #35, #75 and #95 cars were all hit with track limits (which presumably would have been their 'fastest' runs.

As with every GT race in the Championship - anything can and indeed usually does happen - we only have to look back to the opening rounds at Oulton Park to see that and it will be interesting to see what lessons have been learned from the drivers, especially the younger GT4 ones in order to channel their obviously driving talent into something that has restraint and control. With most of these youngsters also under the Aston Martin Racing Driver Academy - support and advice is never too far away!