British GT Championship – Silverstone – Qualifying Report
Very Tight At The Front
© Mark Howson

Qualifying for the second 120-minute race of the season followed a new and logical format: one half hour session. It would not be necessary for both drivers to qualify, which was good news for Team Trimite and Beechdean Motorsport as Nigel Greensall and Aaron Scott respectively would not be present at the circuit until the Sunday.

The only car missing for the session was the Team Aero Morgan, as already explained, although the Team Modena Gallardo once again sat out the first few minutes of the session before Adam Jones joined in.

By this time, Adam Wilcox had already claimed pole position for the VRS Motor Finance Ferrari. On only his third lap, Wilcox set a 1:24.491 and despite some keen challenges this time wasn’t to be beaten. Tim Mullen came very, very close, as did Adam Jones; the Irishman coming within four thousandths of a second of Wilcox’s time in the CiM Ferrari, and Jones’ Lamborghini falling five thousandths short of Mullen’s time. Less than a hundredth of a second separating first from third suggests that the opening laps of the race should be fun.

Having taken on new rubber with a third of the session elapsed, Ian Flux put in a real threat to the top times having set the fastest first and second sectors. By the time he crossed the line, however, the Rollcentre Mosler was a quarter of a second from its goal.

Jonny Cocker was the only Aston Martin driver to get within a second of the pole time and it was clear that the DBRS9s were having to work hard to secure a favourable starting position.

The Porsche situation was looking alarming for Tech 9, until a few minutes from the end of the session. With a third of the time remaining, the upgraded 997 was only just holding onto a top twenty position, and three unmodified 997s had set faster times. But a noticeable shuffle of the timing screen revealed that Tom Ferrier (having taken on new rubber when he took over from Matt Harris) had found enough of a gap in the traffic to set a representative time. 1:25.842 took him to ninth; quickly followed by a 1:25.568 that secured seventh.

“The improvement is a positive note, and the upgrade kit has given us a second,” began Piers Masarati, “but the car is far from good. Without help from Avon, it’s going to be difficult to find much more – the rear tyre needs development.”

The four-way Ascari fight went the way of Damax, with the old-hand Tommy Erdos dismissing the challenge of Phil Keen, and claiming sixth place on the grid. Eric Zwart drove well in the Berlanga KZ1R and pipped the Preci-Spark car of the Jones twins by less than a tenth. All four Ascaris qualified within seven tenths of each other.

The quartet of Vipers was struggling to find pace on the International Circuit, with the Moore Racing Coupe being the fastest of the Dodges early in the session in the hands of Neil Cunningham. His best of 1:26.438 was beaten by the #6 RPM car shortly afterwards, but 1:26.246 would only result in 15th and suggested that the race was going to be very challenging indeed for these cars.

GTC pole went to RSS Performance as expected; Graeme Mundy and Jamie Smyth bettering the efforts of Phil Nuttall and Andrew Shelley in the #64 Trackspeed Porsche by more than a second.

The last few minutes of the session ran down without further incident or excitement, and things were set for the following day. Clouds started to accumulate overhead shortly afterwards – were these the forebears of the wet weather system forecast for Sunday?