+ Result: Free Practice, Silverstone
Marvin Kirchhöfer continued his rapid pace from testing to keep Optimum Motorsport out front in opening Silverstone 500 practice, demolishing his own lap record in the process.
The German trimmed half a second off his own race lap record benchmark from 2022 to put the McLaren he shares with Morgan Tillbrook on top of the times.
Mahiki Racing’s Lotus Emiras proved the star in GT4, with Jack Mitchell’s early effort proving enough for he and Steven Lake to lead the way aboard the #69 car.
There was a flurry of activity as soon as the session went green and all 33 cars rolled out as one. Marcus Clutton set the early benchmark in the Orange Racing McLaren before being beaten by Darren Burke aboard the guesting Steller Motorsport Audi. Maximilian Götz then took a turn out front in his 2 Seas Mercedes-AMG before Kirchhöfer got up to speed and ran well clear, with his best effort sitting 0.8s clear of anyone before the session was briefly halted to recover the Orange Racing McLaren from Maggotts/Becketts.
Götz did the best job of trimming the margin when running resumed, but he could only get within 0.3s by the finish. Sven Müller and Nick Jones were third in the Team Parker Racing Porsche ahead of Donington winners Charles Dawson and Kiern Jewiss in the sister 2 Seas AMG. Burke and Matt Topham were fifth, and first of the new guest GT3 entries, in their Audi with Jonny Adam and Giacomo Petrobelli rounding out the top six in the Blackthorn Aston Martin.
GT4 quickly boiled down to a straight fight between the Mahiki Emiras. Phil Keen did set the initial pace in Team Parker Racing’s Mercedes-AMG before Josh Miller put the #84 Lotus ahead. Then Jack Mitchell set two laps good enough for top spot, his ultimate best also being well below GT4’s existing race lap record. With the sister #69 car well ahead he handed to team-mate Steven Lake for the remainder of the session. Aiden Neate got the gap down to under 0.5s late on, as Charlie Robertson and Ravi Ramyead moved Century’s BMW M4 into third.
Jack Brown and Marc Warren were fourth in their Optimum McLaren ahead of Ed McDermott and Seb Morris in the second of the Team Parker Mercedes-AMGs.
Pre-Qualifying is scheduled for 12:20.