+ Results: Donington Park Qualifying
Charles Dawson and Kiern Jewiss secured pole position on their British GT3 debuts at Donington by beating 2 Seas team-mates Kevin Tse and Maximilian Götz in qualifying for the season opener at Donington.
Lotus’ 10-year wait for a GT4 pole position appeared to be over thanks to Mahiki’s Aiden Neate and Josh Miller, but a breach of parc ferme regulations and subsequent disqualification moved Marc Warren and reigning champion Jack Brown to the head of the field. They outpaced Optimum team-mates Harry George and Luca Hopkinson by 0.001s – the joint smallest pole margin in British GT qualifying history.
P1 in GT3 Silver-Am went to Beechdean AMR’s Andrew Howard and Tom Wood, and Ed McDermott and Seb Morris (Team Parker) bagged GT4’s first-ever Endurance Cup pole as well as third overall.
Marvin Kirchhöfer (Optimum) and Phil Keen (Team Parker) set the fastest individual times in their respective classes. The latter was making his first British GT4 appearance since 2012.
GT3: 2 Seas sails to commanding pole
GT4’s reigning Pro-Am champion wasted no time in stamping his mark on the senior class by setting a blistering pace in Q1. His team-mate Tse topped the leaderboard at half-time but then couldn’t respond to Dawson’s first benchmark as the 10-minute session ticked towards its conclusion.
The #42 Mercedes-AMG didn’t need to go any faster. But Dawson made sure anyway by lowering Q1’s best on his final flying lap. 1m25.234s was ultimately seven tenths quicker than 2 Seas’ second entry, which lapped a tenth-and-a-half faster than Giacomo Petrobelli’s Blackthorn Aston Martin.
That late effort pushed Alex Martin and Barwell down to fourth, while Simon Orange finished as the top McLaren driver in fifth. His lap was a shade faster than Morgan Tillbrook (Optimum) and Mark Smith (Paddock).
Neither 2 Seas Mercedes-AMG topped Q2 but there was no change to the provisional front row regardless after Jewiss lapped just 0.07s slower than his team-mate Götz.
Mitchell moved Barwell’s Lamborghini up one spot by setting second fastest time, albeit by just eight thousandths from Götz, while Kirchhöfer’s 1m24.311s elevated the Optimum McLaren he shares with Tillbrook from sixth to fourth.
Both of those improvements came at the expense of Blackthorn’s Aston Martin which now heads up row three alongside Orange/JMH’s Orange and Marcus Clutton.
Abba’s Mercedes-AMG starts seventh after Sam Neary picked up two spots and Barwell’s second Lamborghini completed the top eight in Matt Topham and Hugo Cook’s hands.
GT4: Mahiki heartbreak
Lotus’ decade-long wait for a British GT pole position goes on, but the manufacturer and its Mahiki team – as well as Neate and Miller – can at least take heart from a performance that should have seen the Emira start up front tomorrow.
Neate made a flying start to his GT4 career by topping the first session and handing an advantage of two tenths to Miller, who rammed the provisional result home by bettering his team-mate’s benchmark.
Pro-Am duo Brown and Warren led the chase and ultimately benefitted from #84’s exclusion despite their 0.2s deficit on track.
Optimum’s other Artura initially driven by George lodged the early benchmark, but Neate bettered it on his first run and then improved to sit 0.223s clear at half-time, with Warren making it an Optimum two-three at the break.
But those positions were by no means secure. Indeed, the same three cars wound up fourth, fifth and sixth in Q2.
Brown took over from Warren and immediately put the #90 Optimum Artura on top of the combined times by overcoming his initial deficit to the lead Lotus. But Miller then bettered Neate’s best by 0.185s to effectively – but only provisionally – settle the contest in Mahiki’s favour.
Ed McDermott and Seb Morris bagged Endurance Cup pole in Team Parker Racing’s Mercedes-AMG before also moving up one spot to third overall in the final classification. Morris’ time was a shade slower than team-mate Keen, whose co-driver Jon Currie now starts fifth tomorrow after Mahiki’s #69 Lotus shared by Steven Lake and Jack Mitchell suffered the same fate as the team’s other Emira.
Starting fourth, and sandwiched between Team Parker’s entries, is the first of Century’s BMWs featuring last year’s Donington winners Ravi Ramyead and Charlie Robertson.
Jamie Orton and Will Burns also moved up two places to sixth in Rob Boston Racing’s Porsche.
Sunday’s two-hour season opener begins at 12:45 BST. The race is live on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel but, thanks to a change in scheduling, will now be shown on Sky Sports F1 as-live in its entirety on at 20:30.