The new McLaren MP4-12C GT3 car enjoyed a superbly competitive international motorsport debut in qualifying for the Avon Tyres British GT Championship  at Spa-Francorchamps, Chris Goodwin claiming pole position for the first of the Belgian races.

But Goodwin’s first-session time of 2m 23.479s was eclipsed in the second session by the Trackspeed Porsche of Richard Westbrook, which posted a phenomenal 2m 22.648s to bag the pole for race two. Westbrook was nearly a full second clear of his closest rival in the session and was the only driver all day to break the 2m 23s barrier.

Andrew Kirkaldy, CRS Racing team principal and Goodwin’s driving partner in the McLaren, was pleased with the McLaren’s performance: “Although we have covered around 4500km in testing this is the first time we have had any opportunity to go up against any other cars, so before today it was something of an unknown quantity. We are very pleased with the way things have gone: the McLaren is reasonably on the pace straight out of the box, it feels great to drive and technically everything has gone as planned.” The McLaren is competing in the Invitation class and will not score championship points.

Goodwin’s first-session time was a clear second better than that of his closest challenger for the pole, Michael Lyons in the Scuderia Vittoria Ferrari 458 Italia. Reigning champion David Ashburn was third fastest in his Trackspeed Porsche, ahead of 2009 champion David Jones in the Preci-Spark Mercedes.

There was a fine effort from Ron Johnson to post the best qualifying performance yet for the Speedworks Motorsport Corvette; Ron will line up ninth on the grid for race one tomorrow, two places behind the United Autosports Audi of current championship leader Mike Guasch.

Westbrook’s session two time was truly a jaw-dropper; the Porsche man posted it in the early stages of the session. Though it probably would have remained unbeaten, none of his rivals got the chance to try to better it in the closing stages after a crash brought out the red flags with five minutes left on the clock. The collision involved cars from other championships - British GT is sharing the Spa grid with European GT4 cars and the Aston Martin GT4 Challenge.

Great Dane Allan Simonsen was second fastest for the Rosso Verde Ferrari team, ahead of the CRS Ferrari of Glynn Geddie, and fourth-placed Matt Griffin, who was the free practice pacesetter earlier today, in the MTech Ferrari.

There was a clean sweep in the GT4 category for Scuderia Vittoria, with Dan Denis claiming the class pole in session one and his team-mate David McDonald repeating the feat in session two. Lotus men Ollie Jackson and Phil Glew will line up behind them for respective races tomorrow.The British GT Championship is sponsored by UK tyre manufacturer Avon Tyres and is further supported by Sunoco Racing Fuels, Anglo American Oil Company and OAMPS.

Avon Tyres British GT ChampionshipProvisional results, official qualifyingSpa-Francorchamps, Belgium 8/7/2011

Race 1 timesGT31  McLaren GT McLaren MP4-12C (Invitation Class)  Chris Goodwin  2m 23.479s2  Scuderia Vittoria Ferrari  Michael Lyons  2m 24.481s3  Trackspeed Porsche  David Ashburn  2m 25.820s4  Preci-Spark Mercedes  David Jones  2m 26.022s5  MTECH Ferrari  Duncan Cameron  2m 26.612s6  Trackspeed Porsche  Gregor Fisken  2m 26.896s7  United Autosports Audi  Mike Guasch (USA)  2m 27.270s8  CRS Racing Ferrari  Jim Geddie  2m 28.577s9  Speedworks Motorsport Corvette  Ron Johnson  2m 28.889s10  Beechdean Aston Martin  Andrew Howard  2m 29.163s etc

GT3B1  MTECH Ferrari  John Dhillon  2m 35.276s

GT41  Scuderia Vittoria Ginetta  Dan Denis  2m 34.651s2  Lotus Sport UK Lotus  Ollie Jackson  2m 36.716s3  Lotus Sport UK Lotus  Freddy Nordstrom  2m 38.297s etc

Race 2 timesGT31  Trackspeed Porsche  Richard Westbrook  2m 22.648s2  Rosso Verde Ferrari  Allan Simonsen (DEN)  2m 23.561s3  CRS Racing Ferrari  Glynn Geddie  2m 23.571s4  MTECH Ferrari  Matt Griffin (IRL)  2m 24.003s5  CRS Racing Ferrari  Alex Mortimer  2m 24.198s6  Chad Racing Ferrari  Tom Ferrier  2m 24.272s7  United Autosports Audi  Matt Bell  2m 24.673s8  McLaren GT McLaren MP4-12C (Invitation Class)  Andrew Kirkaldy  2m 24.898s9  Beechdean Aston Martin  Jonny Adam  2m 25.006s10  Scuderia Vittoria Ferrari  Charles Bateman  2m 25.026s etc

GT3BMTECH Ferrari  Aaaron Scott  no time

GT41  Scuderia Vittoria Ginetta  David McDonald  2m 35.114s2  Lotus Sport UK Lotus  Phil Glew  2m 36.538s3  Lotus Sport UK Lotus  Leyton Clarke  2m 36.621s etc