Oz Yusuf and Gavan Kershaw emerged on top of GT4 qualifying for the sixth time this season at Donington Park today ahead of tomorrow’s Avon Tyres British GT Championship season finale.

The overall class title might be done and dusted but there’s still plenty to play for between the pole-sitting ISSY Racing pair and Optimum Motorsport and Tolman Motorsport crews in the GT4 Pro/Am title scrap. And there was no doubting who drew first blood at Donington.

Academy Motorsport’s Will Moore and Dennis Strandberg came closest to preventing a third-straight pole position for the #77 Lotus Evora and will be happy with their best qualifying performance of the season, while Beechdean AMR’s Jamie Chadwick and Ross Gunn have a chance of celebrating their championship-winning campaign in style from third on the grid.

The first of two 10-minute sessions saw the Ams head out on a dry track following intermittent rain throughout the day. Moore was the first to strike and lead the way from Yusuf before the retrieval of Graham Coomes’ AmDTuning.com Porsche from the McLeans gravel trap necessitated a red flag period.

Just a tenth separated the pair when the session resumed with five minutes remaining, but only Yusuf was able to lower the class benchmark thereafter to claim provisional pole by just 0.009s. Chadwick was a half second further back in third ahead of Henry Hassid’s Invitation Class-entered PROsport Porsche Cayman, the #43 Century Motorsport Ginetta of Aleksander Schjerpen and similar G55 of Pro/Am title challenger Graham Johnson.

The subsequent Pro session saw no change to the top-five, although the gap between first and second increased to 0.503s thanks to Kershaw’s fastest time of the day, a 1m36.575s.

Strandberg had no answer to the Lotus’ pace but was still clear of Gunn and Adam Christodoulou’s Porsche. Fredrik Blomstedt built on Schjerpen’s good work to remain fifth for Century ahead of the Fox Motorsport Ginetta of Jamie Stanley – who set the Pro session’s second fastest time – and Mike Robinson aboard the Optimum G55 he shares with Johnson.

Jake Hill recovered from Coomes’ earlier excursion to finish eighth while the Jamie Wall/Tim Eakin UltraTek Lotus Evora and Kieran Griffin/Jake Giddings-peddled JWB Aston Martin completed the top-10.

Tolman Motorsport’s Pro/Am championship challenger Luke Davenport was one of just four drivers to dip into the 1m36s bracket but only lines up 13th in the combined times. James Nash, who did likewise, ended up 15th aboard the second UltraTek entry.

Oz Yusuf, #77 ISSY Racing Lotus Evora GT4: “I managed a late 1m36s in practice but didn’t get the lap I wanted in qualifying. Yeah, it’s great to secure another pole, but I take a lot of pride in my racing. Gavan’s my benchmark and I like to be as close to him as I can. It’s a personal thing because I want to improve all the time. So just over a second’s difference between us here is disappointing. I should be half of that at most. I really want to get the win tomorrow to secure Pro/Am and prove that we’ve only lost the overall GT4 title through bad luck rather than speed.”

Gavan Kershaw, #77 ISSY Racing Lotus Evora GT4: “The Evora GT4’s effectively four years old and we’ve not changed much since day one. It’s just been a case of evolving what we have. I think the Avon tyres have been a bigger bonus for us this year than any other car, especially in qualifying when we use the rears hard, although that can count against us in race trim over two hours. This run of poles is no accident; it’s only possible because of the effort we put in. We were here last week testing everything from tyres to dampers to wing settings. And that’s why we can go out and do one lap that’s good enough for pole.”

Dennis Strandberg, #61 Academy Motorsport Aston Martin V12 Vantage: “The track had completely dried from earlier in the day and there was a lot of grip, actually. But the best lap is usually your first and I didn’t get 100% out of it. We’re pretty happy regardless because at the last couple of rounds we’ve been two seconds behind the ISSY Racing Lotus and here we were only five tenths, so that’s a big achievement for us. We’re also the fastest Aston here, which means something. Donington suits the Vantage so we’ll be going all out to end our season on a high. I think we’re due a good result.”

The British GT season finale, featuring a four-way GT3 Drivers’ title decider, will be broadcast live from Donington Park tomorrow at 12:45 BST on Motors TV (Freeview 71 & 240, Sky 447 and Virgin Media 545).