+ Orange/Clutton and Stanton/Porter start up front
+ Championship leader Gunn fastest of all in GT3 Q2
+ Result: Spa Speedweek qualifying
Orange/JMH and Optimum claimed a pole position apiece at British GT’s Spa Speedweek after a technical infringement demoted 2 Seas’ Kevin Tse and Ben Green to the rear of GT3’s grid.
The Mercedes-AMG lapped a combined 0.9s faster than anyone else across the two 10-minute sessions before failing the post-qualifying ride height test. That saw Simon Orange and Marcus Clutton bag their team’s maiden GT3 pole position and head up an all-McLaren front row that also features Optimum’s Morgan Tillbrook and Ben Barnicoat.
The same outfit also celebrated a dominant GT4 display by Josh Stanton and Mikey Porter who eased to a comfortable class pole position by 0.9s over Paddock’s Revie Lake and Blake Angliss. Stanton made an excellent start by initially establishing a 0.7s advantage over Innovation’s Ginetta before Porter – who only stepped in at short notice on Friday – added the gloss when setting the quickest GT4 time of all: 2m29.081s.
That honour in the GT3 ranks went to championship leader Ross Gunn whose 2m17.151s elevated Beechdean’s Aston Martin to fourth in the final combined times, one place behind the leading Silver-Am entry shared by Barwell’s Alex Martin and Jarrod Waberski.
Third place in GT4 initially went to Century’s Branden Templeton and Jack Collins before a ride height infringement also saw their BMW moved to the tail of the field. Championship leaders Hadley Simpson and Thomas Holland were the chief beneficiaries.
British GT’s cars will share the track with Championnat de France FFSA GT tomorrow. Their entries start separately a little further behind and have a far longer minimum pitstop time.
GT3: 2 SEAS’ LOSS IS ORANGE/JMH’S GAIN
Tse’s Q1 performance, as well as Barwell’s track limits indiscretions, laid the foundations for what initially appeared a dominant pole position for 2 Seas.
His first flying lap was 0.4s faster than Rob Collard could muster until Ian Loggie crashed 2 Seas’ other Mercedes-AMG with four minutes remaining. The car could not be recovered, leading to a red flag that left drivers with insufficient time to start another representative lap.
Tse’s advantage then grew between Q1 and Q2 when Collard’s second lap met the same fate as his first. And with no third time to fall back on, the #63’s Lamborghini’s involvement as a live pole contender was effectively over.
That elevated Orange to second provisionally, albeit some 0.6s shy of Tse, after the McLaren set its best time just prior to the stoppage, while Barwell’s other Lamborghini would have inherited third without a track limits infringement that dropped it to fifth behind Optimum’s Marc Warren and Morgan Tillbrook. Beechdean’s Andrew Howard completed the initial top six.
Tse’s co-driver Green was never likely to surrender a 0.6s advantage and duly lapped fast enough in Q2 to extend the #18 car’s provisional pole gap to almost a second over Clutton who’d also inherited a 0.7s head start over the third placed McLaren courtesy of Orange. He ultimately took pole by a combined 0.4s from Tillbrook and Barnicoat who finished runner-up in the second session to Gunn.
Two fifth place finishes converted to third overall for Waberski and Martin who now start alongside Howard and Gunn following #18’s penalty.
Optimum’s Warren and Brown slipped to fifth, one place ahead of Rodin’s Ferrari which enjoyed its best individual qualifying session of the season thanks to Josh Buchan. The Australian was third overall in Q3, just 0.008s shy of Barnicoat and less than 0.2s slower than Gunn’s benchmark time.
GT4: OPTIMUM SPA-RKLES IN THE ARDENNES
Fastest times in both sessions and no Compensation Time tomorrow make Optimum’s Silver duo the standout favourites for victory at Spa.
Stanton came out on top of a tight Q1 battle with Paddock’s Angliss as both drivers repeatedly traded the fastest time, before championship returnee Porter proved he’d lost none of the pace that helped him win 2024’s GT4 Silver title by leading the way in Q2.
Stanton proved the star of the opening segment, with his near 0.7s margin teeing up Porter for the second half. Angliss laid down the first marker before Stanton shaved a fraction off the Paddock-run McLaren’s time. Undeterred, Angliss fought back to again set the pace until Stanton got fully up to speed and scorched to two times good enough for top spot.
Simpson enjoyed a strong late run in the Innovation Ginetta to also sneak past Angliss while Templeton brought Century’s BMW up to fourth with his late effort.
Daniel Lavery just got the better of Luke Shaw in Pro-Am as Grange/FSR’s Vantage headed into the second half with a slim advantage over Toro Verde GT’s class rival Ginetta.
Porter didn’t need to be fastest in Q2, but he underlined Optimum’s pace by going 0.5s faster than his co-driver to put the result beyond doubt.
Jack Mitchell gave Porter an early run for his money and did at least do enough to swing the Pro-Am momentum toward himself and Shaw. But it was actually Colin Turkington who got closest to the runaway McLaren in the session, with WSR’s BMW lapping within 0.2s of the fastest individual time.
Revie Lake made it a McLaren one-two on combined times after finishing fifth fastest on his final run. Jack Collins also backed up his co-driver’s pace to provisionally secure third on the grid for Century before the car was later demoted to the back of the grid for a technical infringement. That elevated Holland and Simpson to third ahead of Pro-Am rivals Shaw/Mitchell and Lavery/Darren Turner.
Jessica Hawkins looked set to challenge the sharp end of the field in Q1 but endured a high-speed skip across the gravel, with the resulting damage preventing MK Racing’s Aston from participating in the second session.
Sunday’s two-hour race begins at 14:20 CEST. Watch it live on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel and app, as well as Sky Sports F1.