> Keen leads team-mate Mitchell
> Result: FP1
Barwell Motorsport’s Phil Keen and Sandy Mitchell played out a private battle for bragging rights during a wet opening practice session at Snetterton this morning, while Jordan Collard topped the GT4 times for HHC.
All 60 minutes were led by one of the two Huracan GT3s, which swapped top spot repeatedly over the first half-hour. But ultimately it was Keen – a double winner here last year – who emerged 0.305s quicker than Mitchell.
The gap back to third underlined Barwell’s wet weather prowess, for Keen’s best of 2m07.057s was two seconds faster than Scott Malvern (Team Parker Racing) could manage in third.
Championship leaders Sam De Haan and Patrick Kujala finished a further four tenths back in the best of RAM’s Mercedes-AMGs, while 2 Seas’ McLarens wound up fifth and seventh after WPI’s Andrea Caldarelli split Jack Mitchell and Dean Macdonald in the closing moments.
Optimum’s McLaren completed the top-eight.
In GT4, Jordan Collard set a session best of 2m16.221s to beat long-time leader Jamie Caroline by just 0.045s.
TF Sport’s joint-championship-leading Aston Martin held sway for much of the first 45 minutes until Collard moved HHC’s #58 McLaren to the top just before Will Moore’s stranded Academy Mustang brought the session to a temporary halt.
Balfe’s McLaren was next up in the hands of Euan Hankey who lapped 0.7s shy of Collard’s time, while TF’s second Vantage finished a further half-second down in fourth.
Saturday’s second free practice session begins at 11:55 BST. Follow it live on britishgt.com/watch-live.