{"id":58650,"date":"2021-05-22T08:46:20","date_gmt":"2021-05-22T08:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wordpress_X\/index.php\/2021\/05\/22\/poles-for-beechdean-amr-and-century-at-brands-hatch\/"},"modified":"2021-05-22T08:46:20","modified_gmt":"2021-05-22T08:46:20","slug":"poles-for-beechdean-amr-and-century-at-brands-hatch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/poles-for-beechdean-amr-and-century-at-brands-hatch\/","title":{"rendered":"Poles for Beechdean AMR and Century at Brands Hatch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beechdean AMR\u2019s Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam rolled back the years to claim their first British GT<\/span> Championship pole position together since 2015 at Brands Hatch earlier today, while Century\u2019s BMW shared by Will Burns and Gus Burton topped both GT4 sessions to seal an emphatic class pole.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Adam set the fastest time of all \u2013 1m23.763s \u2013 to vault his Aston Martin from third to first after Howard initially qualified 0.176s behind Q1 pace-setter Michael Igoe. The WPI Lamborghini he shares with Phil Keen still starts on the front row after rebuffing Barwell\u2019s Huracan shared by Leo Machitski and Dennis Lind.<\/span><\/p>\n

Further back, Century claimed GT4 top spot by a combined 0.897s from Pro-Am pace-setters Mark Sansom and Charlie Robertson (Assetto Motorsport, Ginetta) whose aggregate time was just 0.013s faster than Academy\u2019s Mustang shared by Matt Cowley and Will Moore.<\/span><\/p>\n

GT3: THE (ICE) CREAM RISES TO THE TOP<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Beechdean served notice of their intentions by topping FP2 and carried that form into qualifying where Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam\u2019s combined efforts scooped pole by 0.189s.<\/span><\/p>\n

Michael Igoe\u2019s early flyer remained unbeaten throughout the first 10-minute session despite the rest of the field slowly whittling away his early advantage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leo Machitski was perhaps the most relentless in his pursuit \u2013 Barwell\u2019s Lamborghini ultimately fell just 0.053s shy of the similar Huracan ahead \u2013 while late efforts from Howard and JRM\u2019s Kelvin Fletcher ensured just 0.2s covered Q1\u2019s top-four.<\/span><\/p>\n

That effectively resulted in a pole shootout between Phil Keen, Dennis Lind, Adam and Martin Plowman after Adam Balon and Richard Neary ended Q1 0.4s and 0.5s adrift in fifth and sixth, respectively.<\/span><\/p>\n

Adam had left it late to snatch FP2\u2019s spoils from WPI earlier in the day but found his feet immediately when it mattered most by setting GT3\u2019s benchmark on his first representative lap. Keen, by contrast, slipped to third behind Lind initially before restoring WPI\u2019s place on the front row next time around. Less than a tenth separated the two Lamborghinis in the overall times.<\/span><\/p>\n

A track limits infringement spoiled Plowman\u2019s first run but he also regrouped to maintain the Bentley\u2019s existing fourth place ahead of Barwell\u2019s second Lamborghini driven by reigning champion Sandy Mitchell who all but matched Keen and Lind\u2019s individual times.<\/span><\/p>\n

Team Abba Racing also finished where they qualified in both sessions \u2013 sixth \u2013 courtesy of Richard and Sam Neary who also sealed Silver-Am\u2019s first-ever class pole. They were just over a tenth quicker than reigning Pro-Am champions Ian Loggie and Yelmer Buurman in the first of RAM\u2019s Mercedes-AMGs and newcomers Enduro Motorsport who ended Q2 second fastest overall thanks to Marcus Clutton.<\/span><\/p>\n

Balfe\u2019s McLaren driven by father\/son duo Stewart and Lewis Proctor, and RAM\u2019s other Mercedes-AMG completed the top-10.<\/span><\/p>\n

GT4: BURNS AND BURTON A CLASS APART<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Will Burns and Gus Burton scored an emphatic pole position for the opening race of 2021 after each guided the BMW to top spot in their respective qualifying sessions.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Silver Cup crew backed up their strong pace from the morning\u2019s free practice sessions to convincingly score Century\u2019s first pole position since Spa-Francorchamps in 2019, as well as the first for an Evo-spec M4.<\/span><\/p>\n

Burns took the wheel for the first session and pumped in an early time to set the pace, but was only marginally ahead of the Academy Motorsport Ford Mustang in the hands of Matt Cowley.<\/span><\/p>\n

Burns made the most of his fresh Pirelli tyres to retain a 0.150s advantage at the session\u2019s conclusion as the top two forged a comfortable gap over the chasing pack.<\/span><\/p>\n

As such the second half should have been a straight fight between the BMW and Mustang. Will Moore took over the Ford and pushed hard to close the gap but could do nothing about a terrific lap from Burton, who pulled the best part of a second clear after the first timed runs.<\/span><\/p>\n

With Burns and Burton safe and dry, the real interest came from the fight for second. While Academy held on initially, Assetto Motorsport\u2019s Charlie Robertson was a real threat. Building on the excellent early effort of his Am co-driver Mark Sansom, who set third fastest time in Q1, Robertson twice set lap times good enough to elevate the new Ginetta G56 within touching distance of Academy, only to have both efforts scrubbed for straying beyond track limits.<\/span><\/p>\n

Undeterred, his final attempt was an absolute belter, going second fastest of all to steal a front row grid slot from Academy and securing Pro-Am pole in the process.<\/span><\/p>\n

John Ferguson and Scott McKenna will start tomorrow\u2019s race from fourth aboard the Toyota Gazoo Racing GR Supra, with Chris Salkeld and Andrew Gordon-Colebrooke lining up Century\u2019s other BMW in fifth.<\/span><\/p>\n

After a tricky start to the day, James Kell and Jordan Collard netted sixth on the grid in their Team Rocket RJN McLaren 570S, just ahead of Steller Motorsport\u2019s Audi R8 driven by Richard Williams and Sennan Fielding.<\/span><\/p>\n

Katie Milner and Harry Hayek start eighth in their RJN-run McLaren, the similar Balfe-run car of Ashley Marshall and Jack Brown lines up ninth, and Fox Motorsport\u2019s 570S shared by Nick Halstead and Jamie Stanley rounds out the top-10.<\/span><\/p>\n

An engine issue prevented Team Rocket RJN\u2019s third McLaren from qualifying, but the car \u2013 complete with new engine \u2013 is expected to race tomorrow.<\/span><\/p>\n

Watch British GT\u2019s two-hour season opener live on SRO\u2019s YouTube channel and Motorsport TV from 13:00 BST on Sunday.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beechdean AMR\u2019s Andrew Howard and Jonny Adam rolled back the years to claim their first British GT Championship pole position together since 2015 at Brands Hatch earlier today, while Century\u2019s BMW shared by Will Burns and Gus Burton topped both GT4 sessions to seal an emphatic class pole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-58650","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-gt"},"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}