Cresswell fastest on day one of GB3’s pre-season Donington Park test

Photo: Mat Acton Photography

Elite Motorsport’s McKenzy Cresswell was quickest on a tight first day of GB3’s pre-season Donington Park test.

The fastest laptimes came in the fourth and final session, with Cresswell edging VRD by Arden’s Shawn Rashid by 0.040 seconds and with 1.3s covering the top 21.

Tymek Kucharczyk was the early pacesetter in session one, but the Hitech GP driver was eventually displaced by Fortec Motorsports’ Edward Pearson who posted a 1m32.47s. After closing the deficit to Pearson to just 0.002s, Kurcharczyk reclaimed top spot just past the session’s halfway mark with a 1m31.759s.

Hitech’s Will Macintyre went quickest with a 1m31.007s, extended his advantage by 0.3s, then found a further 0.046s in the closing stages with a 1m30.627s that would go unbeaten.

Despite improving on his final effort, Pearson was demoted to fourth as the chequered fell by Hitech’s Gerrard Xie and James Hedley, who was testing for Chris Dittmann Racing after running with VRD at last week’s Oulton Park test.

Xie set a new 1m29.970s benchmark early in session two but the pace soon significantly improved. The Chinese racer regained his place at the top with a 1m26.506s, and after John Bennett went 0.1s faster, he went quickest once more.

JHR Developments’ Bennett then set a 1m24.337s and Rashid briefly climbed to second ahead of team-mate Noah Ping and Cresswell.

As times continued to tumble, Rodin Motorsport’s Louis Sharp and Cresswell exchanged top spot with Bennett, who set a 1m23.290s in the closing stages before improving by a further 0.054s. The session was halted three minutes early after Ping became beached in the gravel on the exit of Fogarty Esses.

Red flags were out again early in session three due to CDR’s Seb Murray going off at Macleans.

Sharp registered two quick laps following the resumption, his best a 1m23.002s, to lead Macintyre and Kucharczyk. Cresswell and Bennett improved into second and third before Pearson caused the second stoppage of the session with 10 minutes remaining, and there were no improvements afterwards.

Cresswell led the first half of session four with a time 0.045s shy of Sharp’s benchmark. Kucharczyk then posted the fastest time so far, a 1m22.896s, with Cresswell and Macintyre also setting sub-1m23s laps to sit second and third.

Despite improving further, Kucharczyk was edged late on by Cresswell’s 1m22.623s, and was then relegated to third by Rashid.

Bennett also made late progress to take fourth place and be within 0.2s of the pace. Freddie Slater ran with Rodin and was sixth behind Sharp. Slater is using the test as preparation for his Formula 4 campaigns with Prema, and is inelegible to race in GB3 before he turns 16 in August.

Macintyre was seventh ahead of VRD’s Ping and Nikita Johnson, the latter making his first test appearance ahead of his GB3 debut, while Daniel Guinchard was 10th for Hillspeed.

Also running for Hillspeed was GB4 champion Nikolas Taylor, who ended the day in 18th, with all 22 drivers setting their best laps in session four.

Day one results