Wilson tops GB4 pre-season Snetterton test day one as 2025 grid grows

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Arden’s Leon Wilson was quickest at Snetterton on Wednesday in the first day of pre-season testing for GB4.

Wilson was fastest in two of four sessions, setting his best time in the third of those to end the day 0.183 seconds clear at the top.

Second fastest was Ginetta Junior Winter Series champion Isaac Phelps, who was testing for Elite Motorsport and has not yet announced his racing plans for 2025. Elite’s confirmed drivers, Alex Kattoulas and Aryaman Bansal, were close behind Phelps in third and fourth. 

Bansal announced his GB4 programme last week, the 15-year-old from Bangalore having competed in the British Karting Championship for the last two years and made his single-seater debut in the final round of Spanish Formula 4 last season at Barcelona with Rodin Motorsport.

Wilson led the Elite trio by over 0.6s in the opening session with a 1m49.627s. In session two, Bansal reduced that gap in 0.058s, set a new benchmark of 1m49.108s on his next lap and then further improved to a 1m49.026s to end the morning’s running 0.344s ahead of Kattoulas.

Bansal’s quickest lap wasn’t beaten until the closing stages of session three, when Wilson posted a 1m48.528s to be fastest once more. Douglas Motorsport filled three of the top five positions in that session, with an undisclosed driver second, Luke Hilton third and Dayton Coulthard fifth behind Kattoulas.

Phelps set a personal best to top session four and move up to second in the overall classification ahead of Kattoulas and Bansal who both also improved their times. Hilton and KMR Sport’s Megan Bruce both set their best times in session four to end the day in fifth and sixth respectively.

Bruce recently confirmed she has switched to the reigning three-time champion team after finishing 11th in the standings in her rookie single-seater season last year with Fox Motorsport, taking a best result of sixth at Snetterton. She also came 11th in the Caterham 270R championship in 2024, accumulating multiple podiums.

Mayer Deonarine will join Wilson and Bruce as a GB4 sophomore this year, and he was one place behind Coulthard in ninth during Wednesday’s test action, having posted his best lap in session two.

The 15-year-old has confirmed a return to Graham Brunton Racing for a full campaign after competing in the first three GB4 rounds in 2024 and just missing out on a podium in his final outing at Donington Park. After that he switched focus to the Radical North America Cup, where he won multiple races in the Pro 1340 class, including a triple triumph on the IndyCar support bill in Toronto.

Rounding out the top 10 was Ava Dobson, who contested two rounds last year with Velocity Racing Development and was testing for its partner team Arden. She has not announced her racing plans for 2025 yet.

Day one results