Donington : Collards and Porter/Day bag Donington poles ahead of penultimate round

Barwell’s championship leaders Rob and Ricky Collard will start British GT’s penultimate round from pole position after beating Kevin Tse and Maximilian Götz (2 Seas) by just 0.036s in combined qualifying at Donington Park this afternoon. GT4 was closer still, Forsetti’s Mikey Porter and Jamie Day pipping their main title rivals Jack Brown and Zac Meakin (Optimum) by only two hundredths.

The fight for P1 overall at the penultimate round also featured Barwell’s other Lamborghini shared by Alex Martin and Sandy Mitchell who finished within a tenth of the Collards. They line up third, three places ahead of Silver-Am pole winners Matt Topham and Josh Rowledge (Blackthorn).

GT4’s sessions also saw the DTO Ginetta mount a strong challenge. But Aston Millar and Freddie Tomlinson will ultimately head up a second row that also features Pro-Am championship leaders Marc Warren and Will Orton in Forsetti’s second Aston Martin.

Fastest time of all elevated Matt Nicoll-Jones, Will Moore and Academy’s Mustang to fifth.

GT3: TOP THREE COVERED BY LESS THAN A TENTH

Q1 initially played out between Barwell's team-mates and title rivals as Martin and then Collard occupied top spot. They looked to have secured a provisional one-two but with moments remaining Tse strung together three PB sectors to overhaul both Lamborghinis and hand Götz a slender 0.023s head start over Collard Jnr.

Mike Price maintained his encouraging recent qualifying form by lapping 0.3s slower than Tse in Greystone GT’s Mercedes-AMG, while both of Blackthorn’s Aston Martins – headed by Topham – completed the top six before the Pro co-drivers climbed aboard.

The action was no less frenetic as the leading contenders again duked it out, but this time Collard was able to best Götz by half a tenth to overturn his starting deficit and claim pole by 0.036s.

Mitchell was fractionally quicker than both of them but ultimately fell 0.088s shy of pole on the combined results. Nevertheless, and unlike both front row starters, the #78 Huracan serves no Compensation Time tomorrow.

Fourth place was consolidated by Callum Macleod who completed Greystone’s tidy day’s work by qualifying fourth – the team’s best-ever British GT grid slot.

Behind, Max Hesse set two fastest laps of all, and within 0.012s of each other, to move the RAM BMW he shares with John Ferguson from eighth to fifth. Their promotion came at Blackthorn’s expense with Topham/Rowledge and Giacomo Petrobelli/Jonny Adam dropping to sixth and seventh.

Garage 59’s championship chasing Shaun Balfe and Adam Smalley have work to do from eighth after their McLaren picked up a puncture in Q2. The team’s other entry featuring Morgan Tillbrook and Marcus Clutton plus Optimum’s Mark Radcliffe and Tom Gamble completed the top 10.

GT4: DAY TURNS IT AROUND FOR FORSETTI

Day overcame the odds during the second half of qualifying to vault Forsetti’s Vantage ahead of the Optimum McLaren. It was his and the team’s second pole of the season, but first since the opening weekend at Oulton.

0.2s covered the three leading contenders after the initial 10 minutes, but it was Forsetti’s Aston Martin that had the most time to find after early pace-setter Day slipped behind Brown and then Millar.

Optimum thus held the advantage after Q1, albeit one subject to an investigation into Brown cutting the pit entry.

But the momentum shifted before the matter could be judged when Day pumped in an early benchmark almost half-a-second quicker than his rivals. That gap was eventually whittled back to just 0.02s thanks to Meakin’s late improvement, but Day had done enough to turn the result in Forsetti’s favour.

Tomlinson initially secured third for DTO before Brown’s two-place grid drop pushed the G56 forward and on to the front row.

Pro-Am pace-setters Warren and Orton – whose late flyer moved the Aston up the order – also benefitted from Optimum’s demotion, which has left the McLaren fourth.

The honour of fastest qualifying time overall went to Jack Nicoll-Jones in Academy’s #62 Mustang. His Q2 best means he and Will Moore will start fifth overall, right ahead of the sister car shared by Marco Signoretti and Erik Evans.

Charles Dawson finished an excellent fifth overall and first of the Pro-Am entries in Q1 but starts four places behind class championship rivals Warren/Orton in the Team Parker Mercedes-AMG he shares with Seb Morris. There’s another Mercedes-AMG alongside them in the shape of RAM’s example, while Century’s #71 BMW and RACE LAB’s McLaren completed the top 10.

GT3 results are HERE / GT4 results are HERE