+ Result, Pre-Qualifying, Oulton Park
Hugo Cook helped Barwell Motorsport to the top of a tight Pre-Qualifying session at Oulton Park, while Toro Verde’s Porsche led GT4 thanks to Tom Bradshaw.
Unlike the opening session, track temperatures were stable at around 33 degrees throughout, giving more opportunity for change at the top. While the session overall was about 0.3s slower than the morning, the fact only a 0.7s separated the top 10 GT3s bodes well for Qualifying later.
Charles Clark was fastest out of the blocks in the #44 Century BMW, before Ben Green usurped him in the 2 Seas Mercedes-AMG he shares with Kevin Tse. Green’s best held until the final 20 minutes when Matt Griffin took a turn out front in the #55 Barwell Lamborghini. Ben Barnicoat then lowered the bar further in the #77 Optimum McLaren, only for Cook to equal the time to a dead heat before then pulling 0.2s on the field to settle the result in favour of himself and Rob Collard. Any final chances for improvement were denied by a red flag to recover the #78 Lamborghini which had stopped out on track.
Barnicoat and Tillbrook were second ahead of Free Practice pace-setters Simon Orange and Marcus Clutton (Orange Racing by JMH McLaren). Despite stopping late on, Jarrod Waberski and Alex Martin were fourth and again topped Silver-Am, with the third Barwell Huracan of Griffin and Duncan Cameron fifth. Green and Tse completed the top six.
Things were just as frantic in GT4, with Tom Bradshaw and Ian Duggan leading the way as five different cars enjoyed a spell out front.
Darren Turner repeated his earlier trick of going fastest from the off, but this time it didn’t stick as Hadley Simpson slipped past the Grange Racing Aston to put Innovation's Ginetta out front. Turner fought back, just before Will Orton brought the MK Racing Aston into the mix. Finally, Bradshaw hooked up a great lap to seal the deal for Toro Verde’s Porsche.
Orton and Jessica Hawkins finished second, just 0.017s down, but did lead the Silver runners. Ernie Graham and Colin Turkington were third in their WSR BMW ahead of Branden Templeton/Jack Collins’ Century BMW. Turner and Daniel Lavery were fifth with Joe Wheeler and James Townsend’s Aston Martin sixth.
Qualifying is scheduled for 15:35.