Nicki Thiim topped the GT3 class in Saturday morning’s first free-practice session for the British GT Spa-Francorchamps weekend, taking the #2 Aston Martin round the Ardennes circuit in a time of 2:20.890.

He finished up the session two tenths ahead of championship leader Phil Keen in the #72 Barwell Lamborghini, who set a 2:21.102. Callum MacLeod was a further six tenths back in the #6 Ram Racing Mercedes, on a 2:21.470.

Fourth fastest was Rob Bell in the Balfe McLaren (2:21.659), while fifth and sixth positions went the way of Jonny Adam in the #47 TF Aston and Adam Christodoulou in the #8 Abba Mercedes.

In GT4, it was also a TF Sport-run Aston Martin that topped the times, as Tom Canning went around in 2:33.908 in the #97 Vantage, while second-fastest was Scott Malvern in the #66 Team Parker Mercedes, on a 2:33.973.

He was just ahead of GT4 Pro-Am championship leader Martin Plowman in the #11 Beechdean Aston Martin (the sole Beechdean car here this weekend, as the GT3 entry is contesting the Le Mans Cup event at Barcelona), while fourth-fastest in GT4 was the #4 Tolman McLaren, ahead of the #44 Invictus Games Racing Jaguar and the sister #5 Tolman car.

There were no major incidents during the session, however, a red flag was called early in the session in order for debris to be recovered from the track.

Alex Toth-Jones, driving the #62 Academy Motorsport Aston, reported contact with the Race Performance Mustang early in the session, resulting in the Academy car spending much of the running time in the garage having suspension and steering repairs carried out.

Weather for the session was warm, dry and sunny, however, a possibility of rain and thunderstorms has been forecast around the time of this afternoon’s qualifying sessions.