Bridgman takes double Carrera Cup pole at Brands
Tim Bridgman took a double pole position at Brands Hatch today (Saturday 4 April 2009) ahead of the opening two rounds of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB. With a late charge in qualifying, Bridgman leapt to the top of the times as Glynn Geddie headed the pro-am1 category and Karl Leonard topped pro-am2. Such was the overall pace and closeness of the field that less than eight tenths of a second covered the first 15 cars for race one.
Times were incredibly close throughout qualifying on the Indy circuit and with 18 cars on track it was a very busy session. While Bridgman (Team Parker Racing) sat out the early minutes of the session and it was Tim Harvey (Red Line Racing) who cut the early pace, posting a best of 47.209s. That lap topped the times until Bridgman went out on his second set of tyres in the closing minutes of qualifying.
With a mighty charge, Bridgman set a 47.186s lap to grab pole for round one and then turned in a 47.193s second best lap to secure pole for race two. “The pace was a bit slower today as the ambient temperature was higher,” said Bridgman. “I hit traffic on my first run, but I got a reasonable run on my second set of tyres.”
Harvey was disappointed to lose pole position as well as the two championship points that Bridgman earned for the two best times. “I got out of the car mid-session as the track was getting slower, then cloud came over,” said Harvey, feeling that the cloud cover helped improve times in the closing minutes of qualifying.
Michael Caine (Motorbase Performance) was third fastest for race one, but nipped ahead of Harvey to be second fastest for race two. “I got held up on my first run and there were yellow flags out on my second run,” said Caine, who was just over a tenth of a second away from Bridgman’s overall best lap.
Heading the pro-am1 times for both races was Geddie (Team Parker Racing) and such was his pace that he qualified fourth overall for race one and fifth overall for race two just behind Dean Smith (Red Line Racing). “I never got any real track space for the second run,” reported Geddie, who was three-tenths up on his pro-am1 rivals Robert Lawson (JHR) and Michael Leonard (Team Parker Racing) for the opening race. Lawson ended his session a few minutes early after a nudge with the tyre wall at McLaren after a spin.
Completing the top six overall times for both races was Carrera Cup Scholarship driver Tom Bradshaw (Team Parker Racing) from his team mate Jake Rosenzweig. Meanwhile, in pro-am2, it was Karl Leonard (RSS Performance) topping the times from George Richardson (Motorbase Performance). However, Leonard was frustrated not to be further up the overall order after being troubled by understeer.

Porsche Carrera Cup GB