British GT Qualifying

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Mike Jordan and Andrew Kirkaldy took a pole position each for rounds three and four of the British GT Championship at Mondello Park in Ireland this afternoon (May 8). The dailysportscar.com cup class pole-positions were shared between Gavin Kershaw and Simon Pullan.

Jordan managed to overcome injuries sustained in a rallying accident last week to put in a time of 1m44.313s in his Porsche GT3-RS to clinch his second pole of the season. Jonathan Cocker managed to snatch second place in the dying moments of the opening session after a brake problem caused him to miss most of the 20-minutes.

“I’m struggling over the kerbs and the bumps,” said a battered and bruised Jordan. “The car was fine and it was the best we could hope for because the Ferrari’s are really quick here. The main aim is to come away from here with as many points as we can.”

Nathan Kinch will start from third on the grid with team-mate Chris Niarchos alongside him. Ricky Cole put the Xero Competition Corvette fifth just ahead of the Embassy Racing Corvette.

Gavin Kershaw sealed his first pole position in the dailysportscar.com cup class, stunning the Porsche and Ferrari teams. His time of 1m46.731s was quick enough for fourth overall for part of the session and showed that the smaller cars have the edge on the tight and twisty circuit.

“It’s all going according to plan so far,” he smiled afterwards. “The car is so easy to drive around here and we can brake so much later into all the corners. It adds up over a while lap.”

Fanny Duchateau put the Rollcentre Racing Noble M12GTO3R into second place just ahead of Adam Wilcox in the DRM Ferrari.

In the second session Andrew Kirkaldy put the Scuderia Ecosse Ferrari 360 Modena firmly onto pole-position. The Scot posted a time of 1m 41.709s to beat the Porsche 911 GT3-RSR of Tim Sugden by one-and-a-half seconds.

“Everything was good on my quickest lap,” said Kirkaldy. “I should have been a little quicker as I had quite a lot of oversteer but I’m happy with where we are.”

His team-mate, Tim Mullen will start from third on the grid just ahead of the TVR T400R of Nigel Greensall. The holder of the outright lap record of the Irish circuit was unable to match the fastest times but kept Peter Le Bas Corvette and Mark Sumpter’s Porsche behind him.

Simon Pullan managed to eclipse his team-mate’s qualifying position to put the Noble M12 onto pole position for the cup class. A frustrated but happy Pullan had wanted to be faster than Kershaw’s time but was unable to match it.

“I wanted to be the fastest cup class car but Gavin’s lap was stunning,” he said. “To be fourth overall for a while was incredibly quick. I tried hard in the early part of the session but started to overdrive after a while. I’m happy to be on pole and it will be an interesting couple of races.”

Barrie Whight put the Lotus second with the ProSport 3000 of Barry Murphy and Jon Lee in third place.

Race one will take place later this afternoon, scheduled to start at 5pm, with race two tomorrow (Sunday May 9) at 2:50pm.

British GT Championship – Rounds 3 & 4

Qualifying – Race one

1 Jordan/Sumpter Porsche 911 GT3-RS 1m44.313s

2 Sugden/Cocker Porsche 911 GT3-RSR 1m44.329s

3 Kinch/Kirkaldy Ferrari 360 Modena 1m45.840s

4 Niarchos/Mullen Ferrari 360 Modena 1m46.061s

5 Cole/Le Bas Corvette C5R 1m46.262s

6 Cook/Cunningham Corvette C5R 1m46.520s

Qualifying – Race Two

1 Kinch/Kirkaldy Ferrari 360 Modena 1m41.709s