R-Racing Aston Martin excel in Qualifying at British GT's visit to Snetterton
Saturday, June 25, 2022
It was a good day today for the locally based R-Racing Aston Martin Racing customer team as their two young guns placed their car upon the front row ahead tomorrows two races of the British GT Championship at the Snetterton racetrack in Norfolk.
Having dialled in their #23 car during yesterday’s available private testing, drivers Josh Miller and Jamie Day proved themselves to be some of the fastest GT4 racers on track by the end of this morning’s two Free Practice sessions making themselves quietly confident going into the later Qualifying sessions.
On the other hand, the overall GT4 Drivers Championship chasing #27 Newbridge Motorsport AMR Vantage GT4 pairing of Matt Topham and Darren Turner where a bit against the wall going into today’s officially timed sessions as their earlier engine replacement this week was proving itself to be ‘problematic’ with electrical component failings during both a pre-event shakedown test at Silverstone and yesterday’s private testing.
Despite the ever-present smile upon the face of Topham, there laid a few ‘concerns’ within regarding his ability to drive through these problem’s and make use of the skills and performances that he already had. Like another Am driver was heard to say, it was simply a case of boosting his confidence rather than anything else.
There were also other issues regarding a revised balance of performance for the AMR Vantage GT4 that saw a wight reduction for the #23 car but a lesser one for the #27 car thanks to the +25kg given to it prior to the last round at Donington Park.
With that all said, track conditions today at Snetterton were otherwise perfect for motor racing whichever side of the fence you were with an increasing afternoon wind slightly muting the ambient temperature without it becoming either too hot or too cool.
With this round being another double header, each Pro and Am driver conducted their own ten-minute Qualifying session to determine the starting order for each race. Miller started the ball rolling for the R-Racing team, bringing home a time worthy of a front row start in P2 behind the #61 Ford Mustang by just 0.1 of a second. Topham’s session aboard his #27 car would be with tyres he had early put a three-lap heat cycle through during FP2 in the hope that that would help him achieve an optimum performance. Whilst he would finish at the head of the Pro-Am class, he was only P11 overall making for a difficult start for him in tomorrow’s opener.
Then it was the turn of the Pro’s with Turner starting his session with brand new Pirelli’s but despite that, the deliverable performance from his GT4 was only worthy of another Pro-Am class pole position – this time in P6 overall.
The news of the day from Jamie Day and his Qualifying session that saw the modest youngster gain his first and his team’s first GT4 Pole position, beating the overall GT4 Championship leader (Sennan Fielding) by more over a quarter of a second. Pitting before the session actually came to an end, the team was unceremoniously reminded by pit lane officials of their need to move their car and driver up to Parc Ferme from where Day received his praise from the Championships TV crews.
All to play for tomorrow for both crews, as tomorrow’s first race comes early at 10:45 before the concluding race of round four of the Championship at 16:05.
Game on!!
