Rees leads JHR one-two at Oulton Park GB3 test, Mills quickest in GB4

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Matthew Rees edged his JHR Developments team-mate Joseph Loake to the fastest time of pre-event testing ahead of this weekend’s GB3 season opener at Oulton Park.

Rees beat Loake’s Thursday benchmark during Friday’s final session, his 1m27.906s lap almost 0.6 seconds faster than the outright lap record on Oulton’s International layout.

Douglas Motorsport’s Tymek Kucharcyzk topped Thursday’s opening session, a 1m29.162s putting him 0.188s ahead of Arden’s James Hedley. Jarrod Waberski  and Alex Dunne were also within 0.27s of the pace, with one second covering the top 15 drivers.

It was even closer in session two, with Rees lowering the benchmark to 1m28.524s to end up 0.018s faster than Loake, with Dunne less than 0.1s further behind. Loake ended the day quickest, setting a 1m28.094s in the final session and finishing 0.067s clear of Rees, with Red Bull junior Souta Arao third.

Douglas driver Lucas Staico and Elite Motorsport’s McKenzy Cresswell both had crashes on Thursday, with Staico missing session three having rolled his car.

Elite’s Ayato Iwasaki had a minor off in Friday’s opening session, with a delay in his car being recovered leaving very little green flag running and only 18 drivers recording a time. Rodin Carlin’s Callum Voisin ended at the top with a 1m28.815s.

The final session was interrupted twice, the first stoppage caused by a spin at Knickerbrook for Carlin’s John Bennett. Rees then set the fastest lap of the week before a second red flag with four minutes remaining. Loake was second ahead of Arao, with both slightly slower than their efforts from day one.

Dunne ended up fourth overall ahead of Hedley, Kucharcyzk and Voisin, all four setting their best times on Thursday. Waberski joined Rees in setting his best lap in Friday’s final session to finish eighth, with six other drivers also improving.

Despite suffering a few electronic gremlins, Tom Mills dominated GB4’s running in the rebranded KMR Sport team’s third car.  It means he has now topped all eight test sessions he has taken part in including those held at last month’s Donington Park media day.

He set a 1m34.815s in session one – putting him 0.627s clear of Fortec’s Colin Queen- before improving to 1m34.740s in session two, with team-mate Jeremy Fairbairn edging Evans GP’s Cooper Webster to third.

Mills matched his day one benchmark in Friday’s first session, with the impressive Webster just 0.004s behind, and again led the way in a disrupted final session with a slightly slower effort of 1m34.881s.

Webster and Queen also also didn’t improve but ended up second and third overall.  Elite’s Josh Irfan and Fairbairn improved to be fourth and fifth, with Harri Reynolds sixth and within 0.663s of the pace.

Sid Smith had an incident on Thursday which cracked the tub of his chassis – formerly raced by Formula 2 star Ollie Bearman – but returned to track on Friday for Fox Motorsport.

Test results