Steven Kane headed the times during testing ahead of rounds 15 and 16 of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB at Brands Hatch today (Friday 17 August), with the top 10 drivers covered by less than a second. Kane (Motorbase Performance) set the day’s best time when most of the leading drivers fitted new tyres in the afternoon session and his best lap of 47.259s was 16-hundredths ahead of the rest. However, Kane felt that he could have gone faster. “I didn’t get the best out of my tyres,” admitted Kane. “I think I should have been a couple of tenths quicker. The time was there in the car,” he said, having flown back overnight from working in Spain. A fine second fastest was Jon Barnes (Team Parker Racing). “That’s what we needed,” said Barnes. “It’s imperative to get some good results here so we can get the budget to go to Knockhill. It’s going well so far,” he said. Sam Hancock almost made it a one-two for Motorbase Performance, but was just edged back to third by Barnes. Despite not being happy with brake balance, Hancock was less than a quarter of a second slower than Kane. Fourth and fifth went to Red Line Racing, with James Sutton fractionally quicker than Tim Harvey. Having been at the head of the times on old tyres, Harvey reported that they had not found the optimum set-up on new tyres. “We lost a bit of time on the qualifying run on new tyres. We need to adjust our qualifying set-up,” he said. Oliver Turvey made a strong impression ahead of his debut Carrera Cup race in the Porsche Motorsport entry. He built his speed through the day and was only half a second away from the best time by the end of the second session. “I’m learning every time I go out in the car,” said the current McLaren/Autosport/BRDC Young Driver of the Year. Michael Caine (Team Parker Racing) was seventh. “I can’t seem to get any grip on the new tyres,” he said. In the pro-am category, just a fifth of a second covered the top three drivers as Nigel Rice (Red Line Racing) headed Andy Britnell (Motorbase Performance) and Charles Bateman (Team Parker Racing). “It’s always going to be close round here,” said Britnell, who shared the pro-am wins with Rice when the season started at Brands in April. Meanwhile, Bateman thought there was more time to come. “Not that brilliant,” he said. “I had understeer everywhere, so we’ll hopefully find the time in qualifying.”