Matt Neal fastest in media day test at Donington Park
Team Dynamics’ Matt Neal left it late to top the official media day test at Donington Park, pipping impressive rookie Ashley Sutton in the final five minutes of the four-hour session.
Neal set a time just 0.003 shy of Triple Eight Racing’s Sutton inside the final ten minutes, then beat him by just 0.091 on his next run with five minutes left on the clock.
Neal completed 35 laps in his Civic Type-R, relatively few compared with many of his competitors, while Sutton racked up 57 in his MG6 GT.
Handy Motorsport’s Rob Austin was next up in third, having topped the times for large parts of the session in his new Toyota Avensis. His stablemate Tom Ingram was fourth for Speedworks Motorsport, despite only completing 11 laps.
Josh Cook made it two Triple Eight MGs in the top five, with Eurotech Racing’s Martin Depper and Jeff Smith; Ciceley Racing’s Adam Morgan; Motorbase Performance’s Mat Jackson and West Surrey Racing’s Sam Tordoff completing the top 10.
AmD Tuning’s Ollie Jackson completed the most laps (71) and wound up 15th in his Audi S3, 0.765 seconds off the pace. Morgan was just behind him on 67 laps, with Team Hard’s Jake Hill (65 laps); Speedworks Motorsport’s Matt Simpson (60 laps) and Tordoff (58 laps) rounding out the top five on distance covered.
There were a total of five red flag stoppages during the four hours due to issues for Hunter Abbott, Aron Smith, Jack Goff and Ingram respectively, with a final stoppage caused by Mark Howard in the final three minutes bringing a slightly premature end to proceedings.
A total of 25 cars set times during the session, with the four Team BMR Subaru Levorgs among the missing cars. Also not setting a time were Team Hard’s Michael Epps, Power Maxed Racing’s Kelvin Fletcher and Maximum Motorsport’s Stewart Lines.
Fletcher had to leave the circuit before the test due to acting commitments, while Lines circulated throughout but had a faulty transponder so wasn’t officially credited with a laptime.
