British GT: Baldwin And O’Brien On Pole For Race One

Pole position for Race One of the 2020 Intelligent Money British GT Championship rounds at Donington Park went to the drivers championship leaders, James Baldwin and Michael O’Brien, driving the #2 Jenson Team Rocket RJN McLaren 720 GT3 that they took to victory in the first race on the opening weekend at Oulton Park.

‘World’s Fastest Gamer’ James Baldwin set the early pace in the GT3 Am qualifying session, lapping in 1:27.345, four-tenths of a second quicker than Ollie Wilkinson in the #96 Optimum Motorsport McLaren.

Baldwin kept pushing, however, and on lap 5 was setting purple sector times to go quicker again with a 1:27.097.

The sister #9 2 Seas Motorsport car, piloted by Angus Fender put in a 1:27.734 to go second quickest, relegating Ollie Wilkinson in the #95 McLaren to third.

Wilkinson then answered on the next lap with 1:27.596 to go back to second, making it a McLaren 1-2-3 at the end of the ten-minute session.

Quickest of the Pro-Am drivers was Adam Balon, driving the #72 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3, who put in a 1:28.330 to take seventh overall.

The GT3 Pro qualifying session put additional pressure on drivers as their individual times would set the grid for Race Two as well as counting towards the aggregate qualifying times for Race One.

Michael O’Brien in the #2 McLaren lapped in 1:27.218 take provisional pole for the two-hour endurance race, .074 seconds ahead of the #78 Rob Collard / Sandy Mitchell Lamborghini. Starting third on the grid for Race One will be the #69 RAM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 in which Sam De Haan and Patrik Kujala set an aggregate time of 2:54.951

Joe Osborne’s 1:26.395 in the #36 McLaren 720S GT3 means that the Balfe Motorsport pairing of Osborne and Stewart Proctor will start on pole for Race Two. Joining Osborne on the front row will be Sandy Mitchell in the #78 Lamborghini.

In the GT4 category, pole position for Race One went to the #58 HHC Motorsport McLaren 570S GT4 in which Patrik Matthiesen and Jordan Collard lapped in an aggregate time of 3:10.750. Starting alongside the #58 car will be the #23 Speedworks Toyota GR Supra GT4 which produced an aggregate lap time across the two sessions of 3:11.135 in the hands of James Kell and Sam Smelt.

Jordan Collard in the #58 McLaren will start Race Two from the GT4 class pole position.

Race One, Round Three of the 2020 Intelligent Money British GT Championship gets underway at 09:45 on Sunday August 16 with the lights going out for Race Two at 16:30.