O’Sullivan appears in GB4 testing as Phelps sets Donington pace

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Elite Motorsport’s Isaac Phelps was fastest on the opening day of GB4’s Donington Park pre-season test.

Phelps set a time of 1m28.395 seconds at the conclusion of Wednesday’s final session to edge Douglas Motorsport’s Luke Hilton by 0.140 seconds.

Hilton led for half of the opening session, which was disrupted by two red flag periods, posting a 1m30.545s and making a series of improvements to lower the pace to a 1m29.781s. But his time was beaten by Elite’s Alex Kattoulas, who set two quicker laps before the second stoppage late on to top the session by 0.196s with a 1m29.585s.

The 2021 GB3 champion and FIA Formula 2 race-winner Zak O’Sullivan was behind the wheel for Pace Performance to help the team get up to speed with the new GB4 car, and he finished 0.052s behind Hilton in third.

Hilton lowered the pace to a 1m29.488s in session two, and he made further improvements on his next two laps to extend his advantage before O’Sullivan edged him by 0.034s with a 1m28.652s just before another red flag ended the session prematurely with five minutes remaining. Kattoulas was 0.2s adrift in third, with KMR Sport’s new signing Alex O’Grady and Phelps close behind in fourth and fifth.

Session three ran under green flags throughout, with Kattoulas dipping 0.02s under O’Sullivan’s benchmark with 15 minutes remaining. But he was denied by Hilton, who set 1m28.588s and 1m28.535s laps consecutively late on, with O’Sullivan edging Phelps and Fortec Motorsports’ Jack Taylor to third.

ADM’s Jason Pribyl ended his first day of GB4 testing in the gravel three minutes into session four to bring out the final red flag of the day. Hilton led with a time 0.013 shy of his session three best before Phelps snatched fastest time of the day on his final lap.

Kattoulas and O’Grady improved in session four to be third and fourth quickest overall respectively ahead of O’Sullivan, with Elite’s Aryaman Bansal and Taylor also setting personal bests in the final session to finish under 0.4s of the outright pace in sixth and seventh.

Graham Brunton Racing’s was seventh ahead of Hillspeed’s Daniel Guinchard who was back behind the wheel of a racing car for the first time in more than a year. Arden’s Leon Wilson was 10th, and Douglas driver Dayton Coulthard was the final driver within one second of the pace in 11th.

Testing results – day one