Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Championship leader Linus Granfors boosted his GB4 title hopes by topping the final qualifying session of the year at Brands Hatch.
The Fortec Motorsports driver produced two late flying laps to seal pole for the first two races of the weekend, denying KMR Sport’s Lucas Blakeley.
Granfors was the first driver to post a flying lap in the 15-minute session, and title rival Harry Burgoyne Jr soon lowered the pace by 2.4 seconds for KMR.
A 1m28.508s lap put Granfors back ahead, while Fox Motorsport’s Branden Templeton briefly moved into second. Arden’s Leon Wilson then set a 1m27.621s to lead Elite Motorsport’s Finn Harrison before Burgoyne reclaimed the advantage by lapping one second faster.
Laptimes continued to tumble, with Granfors going quickest once more by 0.9s before Blakeley beat the Swede’s effort by almost 0.6s to take over at the top. Granfors then edged back ahead on his next lap by 0.072s.
Blakeley responded by going half a second quicker, and he then found a further 0.2s on his next lap while Granfors remained second despite also making an improvement.
Granfors went faster still on his next effort to take back first place by 0.2s, only to be almost immediately displaced again by Blakeley. But the Swede was not to be denied, setting a 1m24.683s to snatch race one pole by 0.062s, and his second-best laptime was good enough to beat Blakeley to race two pole by 0.365s.
Burgoyne took third ahead of Wilson and Templeton for both races one and two. Elite Motorsport’s title contender Alisha Palmowski is due to start from sixth and seventh respectively in those contests, having pitted early on with an issue and initially struggled for pace upon returning to track before improving late on.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Linus Granfors Fortec Motorsports 1m24.291s
2 Lucas Blakeley KMR Sport +0.062s
3 Harry Burgoyne Jr KMR Sport +0.437s
4 Leon Wilson Arden +0.955s
5 Branden Templeton Fox Motorsport +0.980s
6 Alisha Palmowski Elite Motorsport +1.320s
7 Finn Harrison Elite Motorsport +1.398s
8 Chloe Grant KMR Sport +1.650s
9 Callum Baxter Graham Brunton Racing +1.652s
10 Jack Taylor Fortec Motorsports +2.079s
Race 2 grid
1 Granfors 1m24.318s
2 Blakeley +0.365s
3 Burgoyne +0.500s
4 Wilson 0.975s
5 Templeton +1.277s
6 Harrison +1.402s
7 Palmowski +1.469s
8 Grant +1.681s
9 Baxter +2.008s
10 Taylor +2.617s