Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
McKenzy Cresswell was quickest in GB3’s final qualifying session of the season on Brands Hatch’s Grand Prix layout.
The Elite Motorsport driver upstaged title contenders John Bennett, Louis Sharp and Tymek Kucharczyk to take pole for race one, but he was edged to pole for race two by Rodin Motorsport’s points leader Sharp.
James Hedley posted an opening benchmark of 1m24.865s in the 20-minute session to lead his Chris Dittmann Racing team-mates Seb Murray and Tom Mills before Hitech GP trio Kucharczyk, Gerrard Xie and Will Macintyre simultaneously lowered the pace.
Hedley briefly regained the advantage on his next lap, and Fortec Motorsports’ Colin Queen then went quickest only to have his laptime disallowed for exceeding track limits. Macintyre was the first driver to dip under the 1m20s mark, and Queen made his next lap count to take second away from Xie.
Cresswell then edged his team-mate Jarrod Waberski to top spot with a 1m18.951s, and he then extended his advantage by posting a 1m18.479s. Sharp was demoted from third after falling foul of track limits, but he then responded on his next effort to climb to second.
Having sat down the order in the early stages, Bennett then leapt ahead of Sharp with a lap 0.235 seconds shy of the pace, and Arthur Rogeon then further demoted his Rodin team-mate to fourth before the red flags were shown with five minutes remaining after Hillspeed’s Aditya Kulkarni ground to a halt.
Kucharczyk moved up the sixth following the resumption and then improved on his next lap to fourth, while Sharp edged Bennett into second by 0.085s only for the latter to respond and reclaim his place on the front row for race one.
Cresswell remained fastest, with nobody having beaten his benchmark set prior to the red flag period. His team-mate Hugo Schwarze improved as the chequered flag fell to take his best qualifying result of the year in fifth, ahead of title outsider Macintyre who also improved on his final lap to move up from 16th to sixth.
Having briefly held fourth in the final moments, JHR’s Patrick Heuzenroeder was shuffled back to seventh, with Xie also recording a personal best on his last lap to climb up the order to eighth.
Rogeon and Waberski slipped back to ninth and 10th, while reigning champion Callum Voisin qualified 11th on his one-off return for Rodin, with Velocity Racing Development’s Nikita Johnson provisionally taking reversed-grid pole for race three with the 12th fastest time.
Pole for race two went the way of Sharp based on drivers’ second-best laptimes, with Cresswell second ahead of Bennett and Kucharczyk. Macintyre, however, is due to start from 14th in that contest.
Reigning GB4 champion Mills is set to start his first two GB3 races from 19th.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 McKenzy Cresswell Elite Motorsport 1m18.479s
2 John Bennett JHR Developments +0.020s
3 Louis Sharp Rodin Motorsport +0.093s
4 Tymek Kucharczyk Hitech GP +0.194s
5 Hugo Schwarze Elite Motorsport +0.196s
6 Will Macintyre Hitech GP +0.266s
7 Patrick Heuzenroeder JHR Developments +0.305s
8 Gerrard Xie Hitech GP +0.353s
9 Arthur Rogeon Rodin Motorsport +0.472s
10 Jarrod Waberski Elite Motorsport +0.488s
Race 2 grid
1 Sharp 1m18.622s
2 Cresswell +0.076s
3 Bennett +0.085s
4 Kucharczyk +0.323s
5 Waberski +0.352s
6 Schwarze +0.382s
7 Rogeon +0.395s
8 Heuzenroeder +0.508s
9 Nikita Johnson VRD by Arden +0.552s
10 Callum Voisin Rodin Motorsport +0.612s