Beachdean take double Brands Hatch British GT poles

Even with the longer Gp circuit in use qualifying was busy (photo by Marc Waller)It’s a double celebration for Beachdean Motorsport at Brands Hatch as they take overall and GT4 class poles in British GT.

Andrew Howard and Johnny Adam took the overall pole in the second session with their combined times in their Aston Martin Vantage GT3 from both sessions being the quickest overall time just ahead of Minshaw and Keen in the Trackspeed Porsche. Their team mates Ross Wylie and Jake Giddings only just took the GT4 pole by 6 hundreths of a second from Rick Parfitt Jr and Tom Oliphant in their Century Motorsport Ginetta.

There are several changes for this round, the most significant being Jody Firth and Warren Hughes changing from a Trackspeed Porsche to a Triple eight run BMW Z4 GT3. The vacant Porsche is filled by Trackspeed owner David Ashburn and Nick Tandy. Also changing cars, Colin White and Tom Sharp move from a Ginetta GT3 to the MP Motorsport Aston Martin replacing Richard Abra and Mark Poole who have pulled out the championship. Also pulling out is the championships only female driver, jade Edwards who goes back to the Aston Martin GT4 challenge to form a family pairing with sister Chloe.

Trackspeed had been the pace setters after the first session with Nick Tandy setting fastest time but for rounds where there is only one race, the final grid positions are deci ded by combining the times from both sessions which vaulted the Beachdean Aston up to Pole. Behind them, the second Trackspeed Porsche of Phil Keen and Jon Minshaw takes the second spot with Porsches Asburn and tandy take over the other Trackspeed car (photo by Marc Waller)Second overall (photo by Marc Waller)New car for White and Sharp (photo by Marc Waller)often going well at Brands. The second row is an all Oman racing Aston affair with Michael Caine and Ahmad Al Harthy taking third ahead of Rory Butcher and former BTCC driver Jeff Smith in the second car. Oman racing is of course run by local outfit Motorbase engineering who will be hoping for a great result at their home event. The Tand/ Asburn Trackspeed Porsche ended up fifth just in front of Tom Sharp and Colin White in their new (to them) Aston.

Seventh is another Aston with another former BTCC driver, Tom Onlsow Cole alongside Paul White. Beside them are the championship leaders Ecurie Ecosse. Marco Attard and Alexander Sims also have a 30 second “success” penalty at the pit-stop making Brand a bit of a struggle but don’t count them out, they seem to have a knack of being up front by the end. Rockingham winners Ff Crose are ninth with Gary Eastwood again being joined by Adam Caroll who replaced Rob Barff from Snetterton. Rounding out the top ten were the triple Eight newbies of Hughes and Firth, marking their arrival at the team by being the quickest of the three cars. (The other two cars are eleventh and seventeenth.

Behind the front two in GT4 was Twisted Team Parker drivers Bradley Ellis and Adrian Barwick in front of Paul McNeily and Jjamie Stanley in the Fox Motorsport Ginetta. The GT4 grid is nine cars here with a total grid of 31 with both classes combined.

Full times are available on TSL timing as usual  By Marc Waller

The championship leaders are lower than they'd like (photo by Marc Waller) GT3 Pole (photo by Marc Waller) New Triple Eight BMW (photo by Marc Waller) Beachdean GT4 Pole (photo by Marc Waller) GT4 Second (photo by Marc Waller)

 

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