Palmowski sets the test pace at Oulton Park in GB4

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Alisha Palmowski topped GB4’s two-day pre-event test at Oulton Park ahead of this weekend’s season opener at the circuit.

The Elite Motorsport driver exchanged first place with team-mate Finn Harrison and KMR Sport’s Harry Burgoyne Jr in session one on Thursday, with Harrison edging Palmowski by 0.043 seconds on his final lap, a 1m38.769s. Fortec Motorsports’ Linus Granfors pipped Burgoyne to third by 0.079s.

Rain and two red flag periods disrupted the second session, which was again led by Harrison who posted a 1m52.455s to end up 1.7s clear of Arden’s Leon Wilson. There were three further stoppages in another wet final session of the day, which ended two minutes early with KMR’s Brandon McCaughan setting a 1m57.607s to top the timesheet by 0.638s over Granfors.

Harrison’s day one benchmark was beaten approaching the halfway mark of session four on Friday morning with Granfors registering a 1m38.461s. The Swede traded first place with Burgoyne as laptimes continued to improve, but Palmowski moved ahead of the pair with five minutes remaining and then improved again to be quickest by over 0.6s with 1m36.361s.

Burgoyne and McCaughan took it in turns to lead the final session by setting new personal bests, and Graham Brunton Racing’s Callum Baxter was within 0.1s of their pace. Palmowski then went comfortably quickest again with a 1m36.729s, fractionally slower than what she managed in the previous session.

Burgoyne improved late on to finish the test 0.425s behind, with McCaughan edging Granfors to third and Baxter taking fifth ahead of Harrison, who was the only one of the group to not improve on his personal best in session five.

Chloe Grant ended her first test for KMR Sport in 11th, while privately-entered karting star Marcus Luzio was 14th on his GB4 testing debut.

Test results