Slater quickest in practice as GB3 switches to Brands Hatch’s GP layout

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Freddie Slater laid down a marker on his GB3 return by comfortably leading Saturday’s free practice session on Brands Hatch’s Grand Prix layout.

The Hillspeed part-timer was over 0.2 seconds clear of the rest in the 15-minute session, with Hitech GP’s Deagen Fairclough and Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Ninovic having reduced the deficit to him in the closing stages.

Points leader Ninovic headed the field after five minutes with a 1m22.369s benchmark, but soon Hillspeed’s Kanato Le lowered the pace by 1.5s.

Rodin’s Gianmarco Pradel was next to climb to the top by posting a 1m20.390s but, close behind him, Fairclough went 0.7s faster.

After Ninovic reclaimed the advantage by 0.6s with a 1m19.019s, Slater beat that effort by 0.1s approaching the halfway stage.

Slater remained at the top of the timesheet for the rest of the session, as he made three further improvements to end with a quickest lap of 1m18.018s – his advantage at one stage almost 0.7s.

Pradel brought the gap down to 0.45s, his team-mate Ninovic reduced it further to 0.26s, but Fairclough snatched second by 0.038s as the chequered flag fell.

Ninovic and Pradel were shuffled back to third and fourth, with Elite’s Will Macintyre 0.752s off Slater’s pace in fifth.

Rodin’s Abbi Pulling mate a late improvement to climb five places to sixth, as did Xcel Motorsport’s Patrick Heuzenroeder who edged JHR Developements’ Kai Daryanani to seventh by 0.024s.

Hillspeed’s Hiyu Yamakoshi, Red Bull junior Enzo Tarnvanichkul, Alpine junior Keanu Al Alzhari and Kanato Le were all close behind.

Free practice results