British GT: Baldwin And O’Brien Secure Third Pole of 2020

Jenson Team Rocket RJN’s pairing of ‘World’s Fastest Gamer’ James Baldwin and Michael O’Brien secured their third pole position of the 2020 Intelligent Money British GT Championship when they set an aggregate lap time of 2:54.800 in their #2 Mclaren 720S GT3.

Baldwin and O’Brien were just .065 seconds quicker than the #69 RAM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 driven by Sam De Haan and Patrick Kujala who will join the #2 car on the front row.

Completing the top three in the GT3 class was the #72 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 piloted by Adam Balon and Phil Keen who set an aggregate time of 2:54.947.

Pole position in the GT4 class went to the #61 Academy Motorsport Ford Mustang in which Matt Cowley and Jordan Albert set an aggregate time of 3:10.091, .071 seconds quicker than Jordan Collard and Patrick Matthiesen’s #58 HHC Motorsport McLaren 570S GT4.

The first GT3 qualifying session saw James Baldwin in the #2 McLaren jump to the top of the timing screens with a 1:27.511, .191 seconds quicker than Sam De Haan in the #69 RAM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3. 2 Seas Motorsport’s Angus Fender completed the top three in the opening ten-minutes with a 1:27.834 in the #9 McLaren while Michael Brown in the #26 Ultimate Speed Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 failed to set a time.

The second session saw Michael O’Brien take a couple of laps to find the qualifying pace in the #2 McLaren after which the young factory driver put in a 1:27.209 to secure pole position, the third for the Baldwin and O’Brien entry in 2020.

Phil Keen, in the #72 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 he shares with Adam Balon, looked to be joining O’Brien on the front row of the grid before Patrick Kujala lapped the #69 RAM Racing Mercedes in 1:27.163 to finish just .065 seconds behind the #2 McLaren and secure a front-row start.

GT4:

Patrick Kibble topped the GT4 time sheets in the first session to put the #95 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 on provisional pole with a 1:35.221, .140 seconds ahead of Patrick Matthiesen in the #58 HHC Motorsport McLaren 570S GT4.

Matt Cowley in the #61 Academy Motorsport Ford Mustang GT4 finished third quickest in the opening GT4 session with a 1:35.394.

As the second qualifying session for the GT4 grid was drawing to a close, it looked as if the #58 HHC Motorsport McLaren had secured the class pole after Jordan Collard had lapped in 1:34.801. Collard was heading to the pits as Jordan Albert in the #61 Ford Mustang put in the quickest lap of the session to take the class pole position for Round Six with an aggregate time of 3:10.091, just .071 seconds quicker the Collard and Matthiesen’s McLaren.

Jordan Albert was delighted to take the GT4 pole and admitted that he had almost settled for second before a radio message encouraged him to push for one more lap.

“My engineer came on the radio and said we were only something silly like one-tenth off pole and I was planning to have a cool-down lap, so I scrapped that idea and just went for it,” said Albert.

There was drama for the #23 Speedworks Motorsport Toyota GR Supra GT4 when a brake issue side-lined the car for the second session with the result that Sam Smelt and James Kell will start from the back of the grid for Sunday’s race.

The lights go out for Round Six of the 2020 Intelligent Money British GT Championship at 12:45 on Sunday September 20.