Pre-Qualifying Report: Silverstone Sees Interrupted Session
Silverstone witnessed a turbulent 60-minute Pre-Qualifying session for the British GT Championship, marked by three red flags. Callum Macleod of Optimum Motorsport clocked the fastest lap with a time of 1:58.584 in the #3 McLaren GT3 EVO, narrowly surpassing Jonny Adam in the #7 Blackthorn Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo, who recorded a 1:58.662.
The session was interrupted early when Jonny Ip’s #86 Bridger Motorsport Honda NSX GT3 EVO2 became stranded in a gravel trap. The second stoppage came when Will Moore’s #25 Century Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 Evo lost its rear-left wheel, while the third was due to Andrew Gibert’s #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari veering off at Turn 6.
In the top results, Marvin Kirchhöfer secured third with a lap of 1:58.792 in another Optimum Motorsport McLaren, followed by Hugo Cook in the #1 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 (1:58.879) and Tom Wood’s #97 Beechdean Aston Martin (1:58.898), the latter being the fastest among GT3 Silver-Am entries.
Steller Motorsport’s Darren Burke finished sixth with a time of 1:58.963 in an Audi, leading Sven Mueller’s #66 Team Parker Porsche 911 GT3.R (1:59.227). Fran Rueda in the #74 Ferrari and Kevin Tse’s #18 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO followed, rounding out the top eight, while Matt Griffin completed the top 10 in the #55 Spirit of Race Ferrari with a time of 2:00.031.
In GT4, Jack Mitchell’s #69 Mahiki Racing Lotus Emira GT4 set the pace with a 2:09.475, finishing ahead of reigning champion Jack Brown. Optimum Motorsport’s #70 McLaren Atura GT4 and #17 McLaren, piloted by Luca Hopkinson (2:09.746), claimed second and third, respectively. Stuart Hall in the #50 MHK Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 Evo (2:09.980) and Seb Morris in the #12 Mercedes-AMG secured the fourth and fifth positions in GT4.
The next qualifying session is set to begin at 16:15 local time.
Pre-Qualifying Times Overview
This session highlights Optimum Motorsport’s strong performance across various categories as teams prepare for an exciting race ahead.
