British GT4 Donington - Edgar and Collard deny Steller Fielding 16.10.2022: Intelligent Money British GT Championship Donington Park Saturday, October 15th 2022 Toyota Gazoo Racing UK’s Tom Edgar and Jordan Collard scored their first pole position of the season in a dramatic shootout at Donington, with the pair’s GR Su

Intelligent Money British GT Championship
Donington Park
Saturday, October 15th 2022




Toyota Gazoo Racing UK’s Tom Edgar and Jordan Collard scored their first pole position of the season in a dramatic shootout at Donington, with the pair’s GR Supra sealing the place by just 0.017s on aggregated times.



While Century made the early running, it was the Toyota drivers and Steller Motorsport’s title-chasing duo of Richard Williams and Sennan Fielding that duked it out for top spot, which remained in doubt until the very last lap thanks to the constantly improving track.



Unlike the earlier GT3 sessions, conditions were more clear-cut for the GT4 runners, with most of the field opting to start the first segment on slick Pirellis thanks to a dry line forming around the fastest parts of the circuit.




That led to a flurry of improvements across the opening 10 minutes, where a total of five cars took a turn to lead the way. Jamie Orton set the initial pace in the Team Parker Racing Porsche 718 Cayman, but Tom Rawlings was a constant challenger in the #9 Century Motorsport BMW M4. Then came Josh Miller in the R Racing Aston Martin, before the real fight for pole developed across the final two laps.



Williams timed his last run brilliantly to go half-a-second clear with just moments left, but Edgar’s effort was even better, snatching a 0.2s advantage as the flag fell. With Rawlings some 0.7s behind in third, it would narrow the fight for pole down to just those two, with the final session almost completely dry.



Collard took over from Edgar and wasted no time in pumping in a time good enough for provisional pole, only for Fielding to better it by a few tenths and swing the result the Audi’s way. This see-sawing continued for virtually the entire session, with Fielding giving it everything to try and overhaul the deficit to the Toyota. While he set the fastest lap of the session – a 1m35.5s – Collard’s final effort was enough to hold pole by just 0.017s on the combined times.



Behind the runaway top two, Chris Salkeld built on Rawlings’ strong early work to take third for the Century BMW, with Jamie Day/Miller’s Aston lining up fourth. Jack Brown/Will Burns’ #90 Century BMW was fifth, ahead of Seb Hopkins/Orton’s Porsche.



But qualifying would be something of a disaster for championship leaders Matt Topham and Darren Turner who struggled to 12th overall in their Newbridge Motorsport Aston Martin. Topham started on wets in his segment, and the resulting nine-second pace deficit left Turner with too much to do.



Instead, class rivals Kavi Jundu and Moh Ritson (Paddock Motorsport) celebrated their first Pro-Am pole in 10th overall.



The battle to be crowned 2022 Intelligent Money British GT champions begins at 13:00 BST on Sunday. Watch the race live on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel and Sky Sports F1, as well as The Race and Motorsport TV.




- Tom Hornsby, photo SRO