Free Practice 2: Lind lays down fastest lap while Toyota Gazoo Racing UK top the table twice

Conditions at Donington Park continued to improve as Free Practice Two saw top honours ultimately taken by Barwell Motorsport‘s GT3 title contenders Leo Machitski and Dennis Lind in their #63 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo. In GT4, Toyota Gazoo Racing UK‘s #15 Toyota Supra GT4 duo made it a double header across both free practices sessions as they were again quickest, in spite of a few challenges.

GT3: Barwell dominate the top of the tables.

Sandy Mitchell was the first of the Barwell Motorsport cars to go quickest, though the #1 Lamborghini didn’t immediately rise through the rankings, as the top spot was shared between a number of teams before this. Phil Keen’s #18 WPI Motorsport Lamborghini, the McLaren 720s round by round GT3 entry of Team Rocket RJN driven by Euan Hankey as well as Enduro Motorsport‘s Marcus Clutton all topped the table before Mitchell became top dog.

That didn’t last too long though, as teammate Dennis Lind was hot on his heels, and after a couple of laps of reducing the lead held by the #1, Lind comfortably surpassed the time of his sister car, extending the lead to 0.3s with the only other real competition for the pair of Barwell cars coming from the Mia Flewitt/Euan Hankey combo, who finished third.

This may have been different, however, had the Team ABBA Racing Mercedes AMG GT3 had the whole of the session, but the #8 car driven by father/son duo Richard Neary and son Sam were forced to start the session late as a consequence of Track Limits violations in the previous session. The 5 minute penalty didn’t stop Sam Neary though as he wasted no time in getting the mean green Mercedes machine up to fourth quickest overall.

Phil Keen and Michael Igoe, in spite of their early pace were unable to capitalise further on this, leaving them fifth quickest through the session, ahead of the Ram Racing duo of Ian Loggie and Yelmer Buurman.

GT4: Challenges can’t stop John Ferguson and Jamie Caroline

Those challenges mentioned above?? Well, Team ABBA Racing weren’t the only car to have a late start to the session, as the Toyota Gazoo Racing UK Toyota Supra GT4 had also fallen foul of track limits violations during the previous free practice session. Also subject to a 5 minute penalty, their late start allowed the Academy Motorsport Ford Mustang GT4 of Matt Cowley to seize the fastest time in the GT4 ranks, which was comfortably maintained until just after halfway through the session where Jamie Caroline inched the Supra into the lead.

The track limits issues kept coming however, and soon enough they were called back to the pits for a further 5 minute stop/go penalty due to track limits violations. That wasn’t the end of the drama for this car though, as after completing the penalty they made it through to the last five minutes of the session before a big spin sent Caroline well into the gravel.

Despite this, they remained fastest through the session ahead of the Academy Mustang duo of Matt Cowley and Will Moore, while CWS Racing were third quickest. An additional entry for this weekend in their Ginetta G56, driver pair Colin White and Mike Simpson are using the weekend with a view to CWS Racing joining the season full time next year.

Steller Motorsport‘s Richard Williams and Sennan Fielding were fourth quickest in the session, with Darren Turner and Matt Topham‘s Newbridge Motorsport Aston Martin coming in fifth quickest in spite of only completing a few laps of the session as contact with the Tolman Motorsport GT3 entry saw it in the garage for most of the hour. The guest Century Motorsport entry of the Aston Martin driven by David Holloway and Bradley Ellis rounds out the top six.