Challenging conditions at Donington as Forsetti chase the GT4 drivers titles too in British GT
Saturday, September 07, 2024
Having tested at the circuit on Thursday under blue skies and sunshine, that was something that never materialised today with the first of the official timed Free Practice sessions before culminating in this afternoon aggregated Qualifying times ahead of Sunday’s two-hour race.
Already having received their GT4 Team’s Championship winning silverware ahead of today, the Norfolk based Forsetti Motorsport hold all the aces as far as further Aston Martin Racing powered championship win is concerned with their #7 Vantage GT4 crew of Mikey Porter and Jamie Day heading the overall and GT4 Silver classes whilst their #47 Vantage GT4 crew of Marc Warren and Will Orton do within their own GT4 Pro-Am class.
With testing and Free Practice results always hard to judge pace wise, it were the two Blackthorn AMR Vantage GT3 crews that pushed the pace during their two Qualifying sessions as first Giacomo Petrobelli and then Matt Topham pushed the GT3 Am leaders all the way to finish their ten-minute qualifying time P6 and P5 respectively. The #97 Beechdean AMR Vantage GT3 of Andrew Howard seemed never to get going within the greasy offline conditions to eventually finish P16 overall.
Next up were the higher graded GT3 drivers with Jonny Adam taking over the #87 Blackthorn car with both Josh Rowledge within the #10 car and Jessica Hawkins within the #97 Beechdean AMR car as their silver graded drivers.
Again, the Blackthorn cars performed well with their best lap times coming at the fourth time of asking, presenting the #10 with a cracking P6 overall and P1 in Silver-Am starting position with the #87 Pro-Am car of Petrobelli/Adam just behind in P7 overall (P6 in class) and with the #97 Beechdean car P16 overall and P6 in class.
Just ahead of the rains returning to the circuit, the GT4 class were able to run their two allotted ten-minute sessions with first Mikey Porter and Marc Warren out within their #7 Silver and #47 Pro-Am classed entries. Whilst Porter was only able to improve upon his previous lap times the once, Warren saw a succession of laps improve for time (time wise) for them to finish third and eighth respectively.
Then out came Jamie Day and with his first lap time secured the provisional pole position for the #7 car (bettered it again with his next lap) before saving their tyres ready for the race happy with his days work at the front of the GT4 queue. Orton was only marginally off Day’s times, but this time ran a four-lap session before timing out with an aggregated starting position of P4 overall but P1 in Pro-Am.
Sunday’s weather looks like there could be a lot more rainfall at the circuit before the race tomorrow but dryer from midday onwards for the race itself.
Wet or dry – it may not quite be the #DoningtonDecider that we all know but it might confirm who can control their nerves and who can’t!!
Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media
