CR Scuderia and 22GTRacing secured a pole apiece in qualifying for the latest rounds of the Avon Tyres British GT Championship at
Thruxton after Jeremy Metcalfe and Michael Bentwood set the pace during the two qualifying sessions at the high-speed Hampshire circuit.
Metcalfe set the pace during the first session to secure pole at his home circuit with a lap of 1min 16.697secs at the wheel of the #16
Ferrari 430. That allowed him to fend off the challenge of a revitalised Cadena Motorsport Aston Martin DBRS9 in the hands of Barrie Whight, with the yellow car half a second back, and the #1 Team RPM Viper in the hands of Ollie Bryant, who partners Steve Clark this weekend with Paul O'Neill unavailable.
Both RPM Vipers ran well during the session as Nick Foster took fourth, ahead of Paddy Shovlin in the second CRS Ferrari and points leader James Gornall in the Brookspeed/Trimite Viper. Craig Wilkins was seventh in the ABG Viper ahead of the returning Mike Gardiner in the similar car of Moore Racing, with Michael Meadows' Ferrari and Guy Harrington's Lamborghini completing the top ten. In the wars during the session was Peter Bamford's Ferrari which went off into the barrier on the inside of turn one, bringing out the red flags and also putting the car out of second qualifying.
In GT4, youngster Nigel Moore took class honours in 17th place ahead of the championship leading IMS Ginetta of Matt Nicholl-Jones and the second of the RPM G50s of Fulvio Mussi. Moore Racing's Maserati Trofeo failed to venture onto the track in what is its first race weekend in the series.
In the second session, Allan Simonsen looked well set to take pole for the Christians in Motorsport team, with the Dane setting what he thought would be a lap good enough for pole and then returning to the pits to watch the remainder of the session. However, Bentwood had other ideas and posted the quickest GT lap of the weekend with a time of 1min 15.799secs putting an Aston on pole for the first time this season.
