Bridgman heads Carrera test at Donington

Tim Bridgman was in mighty form in testing at Donington Park yesterday ahead of rounds five and six of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB at the East Midlands circuit this weekend.As team boss Stuart Parker celebrated his 33rd birthday, the three cars from Team Parker Racing packed into the top four positions, with only Tim Harvey (Red Line Racing) preventing Parker's team dominating the leading positions.Bridgman set a searing pace in the afternoon and came within four-hundredths of a second of posting the fastest ever Carrera Cup lap of Donington. He clocked a best of 1m08.964s, but believed that he could have gone faster still. "I was a bit surprised to be fastest, because my best lap on new tyres wasn't that good a lap," said Bridgman. "There's another two or three tenths to come, I think." Harvey led the chase of Bridgman and was pleased with his day's work. "We worked through our programme and we really concentrated on race set up," said Harvey, who knows that the Donington track can be notoriously tough on tyres. "The car is very consistent."Michael Caine was third fastest for Team Parker Racing, and was also working on tuning his car for the pair of races on Sunday. "It’s good and consistent for a race run, but not quite there for an all-out qualifying lap," he said. A fine fourth fastest went to Charles Bateman, who completed a great day for Team Parker Racing by posting one of his best performances to date in the Carrera Cup. "We're improving all the time and the car was brilliant," said Bateman.Fifth and sixth fastest were Phil Quaife and Sam Hancock for Jota Sport, and they too were working on race set-ups. They ran a full race distance during the afternoon test session and Quaife reported that it had been a very successful run.Seventh fastest, and still within a second of Bridgman's best, was Callum MacLeod in the PCGB entry. Preparing for his first races of 2008, the Autosport young driver award finalist from 2007 was learning all about the 911GT3 Cup car and ended the afternoon test with a spin into the gravel at McLeans. "I didn’t have a good lap on the new tyres, but I'm confident we can be quick," said the 20-year old single-seater racer.With his fastest ever lap at Donington, Nigel Rice (Red Line Racing) topped the pro-am1 class and lapped within a second of Bridgman as he broke the 1m10s barrier. Leading the chase of Rice in an impressive Carrera Cup debut was Nick Whale (Team RPM). "I'm pleased with that," said Whale after trimming his times through the day. "I feel that we've done the best we could on the day," he said after moving ahead of pro-am1 rival Tony Gilham (ReDesign Racing).

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