Beechdean AMR’s Ross Gunn topped the times during second practice for this weekend’s opening British GT round of the season at Brands Hatch, while a late flying lap from Nathan Freke was enough to put Century Motorsport top of the GT4 standings.
A smattering of rain disrupted the early running but didn’t last long enough to prevent Gunn from comfortably beating the morning session’s benchmark. However, his pace will count for little this afternoon due to co-driver Andrew Howard’s ELMS commitments preventing the pair from qualifying at Brands.
Beechdean AMR had earmarked 2016 as a development year for the reigning GT4 champion, but clearly no-one informed the 19-year-old who set two laps worthy of topping the session. His first and fastest - a 1m24.554s - ended up 0.147s quicker than Phil Keen’s Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan, which occupied the same position in FP1. Ominously, Keen aborted his final flying lap after setting the overall fastest times in each of the first two sectors.
Next up was Rob Bell’s Black Bull Ecurie Ecosse McLaren 650S GT3, which ended the 50-minute session just three tenths down on Gunn’s best time. TF Sport’s Jonny Adam finished fourth after lapping marginally slower than his FP1 benchmark, while Joe Osborne’s AmDTuning.com BMW and the second TF Sport Aston Martin of Jon Barnes completed the top-six.
In GT4, PMW Expo/Optimum Motorsport’s Mike Robinson spent most of the session on top before being pipped by just 0.055sec in the closing moments by Freke whose 1m32.085s was more than a second faster than the morning’s best.
Third place went the way of Matthew Graham and Jack Mitchell whose Generation AMR Macmillan Racing Aston Martin was the only non-Ginetta inside the top-six.
Jordan Stilp’s RCIB Insurance Racing G55 GT4 was fourth ahead of Aleksander Schjerpen’s second Century Motorsport entry and Simpson Motorsport’s Scott Malvern.
Qualifying gets underway at 16:45 BST.