Ross Gunn emerged on top of a fraught second free practice session at Oulton Park, edging the Beechdean AMR Aston Martin Vantage to the fastest time across a session where five different crews took a turn out front. That was in contrast to GT4, where a superb early effort from Dan Vaughan ensured the Team Parker Racing Porsche 718 Cayman that had missed FP1 shone brightest in the second session.

GT3 provided a tight tussle over the final fastest time pre-qualifying, with five different cars leading the way across the hour. Callum Macleod made the best start, putting the Greystone GT Mercedes-AMG he shares with Mike Price on top, before Sam Neary edged his and his father’s Team Abba Racing AMG past. Progress was briefly interrupted by a red flag caused when Mark Sansom spun his Barwell Lamborghini and needed to be recovered.

When running resumed, it was all about Raffaele Marciello in the RAM Racing AMG. Having used the first session to play himself into Oulton’s sweeps, the Swiss-Italian set two laps good enough for fastest time, the second of which put him and team-mate John Ferguson 0.7s clear, even if Marciello was a second off the morning’s quickest time.

That set a benchmark for the others, and both Gunn and Sandy Mitchell hopped back in for a shot at it. Gunn was first to depose Marciello, before Mitchell snuck ahead with 11 mins left, only for Gunn to reload for one final run and get the job done for himself and Andrew Howard. Mitchell and Shaun Balfe were a tenth back, with the Nearys taking third.

Marciello and Ferguson were fourth, ahead of Mike Price and Macleod, with James Cottingham and Jonny Adam rounding out the top six.

GT4 was largely a game of cat-and-mouse, but nobody could find a way to reel in Dan Vaughan in the Team Parker Racing Porsche 718 Cayman. A lightning effort early on out the car half-a-second up, and nobody managed to fully erode the gap. It was quite a way to bounce back given Vaughan and Zac Meakin missed the entirety of FP1 due to an electronic glitch.

Ian Gough and Tom Wrigley were second fastest in the RACE LAB McLaren Artura GT4, just over two tenths behind, while Jack Brown and Charles Clark brought Optimum’s Artura up to third. Harrys George and Nunn were fourth in Enduro’s McLaren, while Joe Wheeler and Esmee Hawkey were fifth for Toro Verde, with FP1 pace-setters Aston Millar and Josh Rowledge sixth in the DTO McLaren.

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By Paul Foster

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