British GT 2014 started at Oulton park today and the qualifying sessions for the two opening races produced two different results.
Race one will see an all Aston Martin front row whereas race two has a BMWon pole with an Aston joining it on the front row.
In the first session Al Harthy’s Oman racing Aston took pole for race one with a lap of 1:36.147, Defending champion Andrew Howard took second in the Beechdean car. Behind them Marco Attard in his BMW took third with Pasin Lathouras’ Ferrari (shared with Richard Lyons) in fourth.
For race two it was the Ecurie Eccose BMW Z4 of Alexander Sim on pole from the Beechdean Aston this time driven by Johny Adam. Behind them on the second row was Arron Scott having his best qualifying for a few seasons in third sharing the car with John Dillon. In fourth this time was the M-Sport Bentley Continental R of Steven Kane and Rembert Berg
GT4 class poles were also close. The Beechdean GT4 Aston took race on pole with Ross Wylie putting the car he will share with Jake Giddings on pole. For the second race Gavan Kershaw took first place in class in the Issy racing Evora he shares with Oz Yusuf..
Second fastest in the race one GT4 qualifying battle was the 42 Century Motorsport Ginetta of reigning champion Rick Parfitt and new team-mate Tom Oliphant, with the Andrew Jarman and Devon Modell TF Sport Aston third and the race two ‘pole’ sitter fourth.
The top four GT4s for race two saw the Team Parker Racing Porsche of Barrie Baxter and Dan Cammish second quickest to the Lotus, with the Beechdean Aston third fastest and the TF Sport Aston fourth.
Lee Mowle and Joe Osbourne’s 888 BMW Z4 and the Trackspeed Porsche of Jody Firth and arren Hughes had to miss qualifying and are likely to miss the race as well after a bizarre incident in practice. The Porsche had gone off at the chicane but the car was left in place. Lee Mowle then lost control of the BMW and slammd into the Porsche severely damaging both cars.
Harry Whale in GT4 also had to miss qualifying as the car was damaged in the supporting Aston Martin GT4 challenge race. It’s unclear if the car, shared with Rcihie Stanaway will race.
Olympic legend Chris Hoy had a solid start to his British GT career, qualifying fourteenth for race one while his team mate Chris Buncombe also put the car in fourteenth for race two.
Tania Mann is ninth in the GT4 class for both of the races with Matt draper joining her in the car.
The circuit has no action now until Easter Monday when the racing will recommence. Race one is scheduled to start at 11:15 and race two is scheduled for 15:45. By Marc Waller
