Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Elite Motorsport’s Isaac Phelps will start his first single-seater races from pole after topping the opening GB4 qualifying of 2025 at Donington Park.
Phelps eclipsed the pre-event test pace by recording a 1m27.724s lap to deny Fortec Motorsports’ Jack Taylor race one pole by 0.122 seconds, and Phelps also took pole ahead of Taylor for race two, where the grid is determined by drivers’ second-best lap times.
Douglas Motorsport’s Luke Hilton led with a 1m31.823s after drivers had completed their first timed laps in the 15-minute session, and he then improved by 1.2s with his next effort to hold a 0.1s advantage over Pace Performance’s Stefan Bostandjiev.
Elite’s testing pace-setter Alex Kattoulas soon went quickest with a 1m38.420s, and Arden’s Leon Wilson demoted Hilton to third.
Bostandjiev lowered the pace by 1.3s, with Wilson improving to within 0.013s of the Bulgarian racer before Phelps went quickest by just 0.003s.
Racing returnee Daniel Guinchard was next to lead, the Hillspeed racer edging Phelps by 0.14s, but Bostandjiev responded by reclaiming the advantage with a 1m27.979s.
KMR Sport’s Alex O’Grady soon eclipsed that effort by 0.013s, but the pair were then beaten by Guinchard who edged ahead for the second time with a 1m27.909s.
Taylor snatched provisional pole in the closing stages with a 1m27.846s, only for Phelps to register his session-topping lap moments later. Bansal made a late improvement to move into third ahead of Guinchard and Hillspeed’s Leandro Juncos.
O’Grady qualified in sixth ahead of Bostandjiev and Kattoulas. Hilton was ninth ahead of team-mate Enzo Hallmann and Wilson, while Fortec’s Thomas Ingram-Hill was 0.5s shy of the pace in 12th to provisionally take reversed-grid pole for race three.
Bansal was edged to third on the race two grid by O’Grady, with Kattoulas and Guinchard set to start that contest from the third row.
Qualifying results
Race 1 grid
1 Isaac Phelps Elite Motorsport 1m27.724s
2 Jack Taylor Fortec Motorsports +0.122s
3 Ary Bansal Elite Motorsport +0.178s
4 Daniel Guinchard Hillspeed +0.185s
5 Leandro Juncos +0.187s
6 Alex O’Grady KMR Sport +0.241s
7 Stefan Bostandjiev Pace Performance +0.255s
8 Alex Kattoulas Elite Motorsport +0.267s
9 Luke Hilton Douglas Motorsport +0.321s
10 Enzo Hallman Douglas Motorsport +0.339s
Race 2 grid
1 Phelps 1m27.785s
2 Taylor +0.093s
3 O’Grady +0.181s
4 Bansal +0.185s
5 Kattoulas +0.219s
6 Guinchard +0.225s
7 Juncos +0.294s
8 Hilton +0.300s
9 Bostandjiev +0.369s
10 Leon Wilson Arden +0.437s