Barwell Motorsport’s Phil Keen continued his impressive start to this weekend’s British GT round at Snetterton by once again recording the fastest time in free practice. Meanwhile, in GT4, David Pittard topped the times for Lanan Racing.
Heavy rain before the session necessitated wet weather tyres for the first 10 minutes or so. But with dark clouds soon replaced by sunshine it wasn’t long before the track began to dry and, with it, representative times set.
Callum Macleod, Jonny Adam and Jon Barnes all spent time at the top before Keen emerged from his garage with 10 minutes remaining to record the fastest time of the day thus far, a 1m48.737s. And further purple sectors before pitting suggested more to come from the championship leader in qualifying later today.
Matt Griffin also bided his time before going second late on, although his best aboard Spirit of Race’s Ferrari was some 1.1s shy of Keen’s pace-setting Lamborghini.
The Irishman finished 0.1s clear of Barnes’ TF Sport Aston Martin, which pipped the team’s sister Vantage of Jonny Adam by another tenth. Team Parker Racing’s Macleod had also been fastest earlier in the session before sliding down to fifth as a result of late improvements from others.
Sam Tordoff’s Barwell Lamborghini completed the top-six, albeit 1.7s down on team-mate Keen’s time.
GT4 was also clear cut with Lanan Racing’s Pittard lapping 0.470s faster than Joe Osborne. The Ginetta driver’s best of 1m59.023s was also a tenth quicker than Stuart Middleton had managed in the morning’s session.
Porsche Carrera Cup GB Pro-Am 1 champion Euan Mckay, making his British GT debut with In2Racing this weekend, finished a tenth behind fellow McLaren driver Osborne, while HHC Motorsport’s FP1 pace-setters Middleton and Tregurtha were fourth on this occasion.
The opening session had seen the top-nine covered by a second, but the weather conditions put paid to that in the second. Instead, Century’s Jacob Mathiassen was a second shy of Pittard’s pace but still fast enough to end up fifth ahead of Martin Plowman’s UltraTek/RJN Nissan and the Johnson/Robinson PMW Expo/Optimum Motorsport Ginetta.
Nathan Freke, who’s stepped back from GT3 to race Century’s second GT4 alongside Anna Walewska this weekend, completed the top-eight.
Qualifying for tomorrow’s two British GT races begins at 15:55 this afternoon.