Welsh racer Seb Morris made a strong impact on official pre-season GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup testing at Paul Ricard in France, lapping second fastest overall on the opening day.

Making his first track appearance in the Bentley Continental GT3 with the CMR team, the 24-year-old from Marford posted the second best time of 1m53.855 seconds on the opening session.

Morris remained second quickest overall for the day before he switched across to the factory M-Sport squad – with which he competes in the Intercontinental GT Challenge – and undertook some longer distance test runs.

Delighted with the work completed over the course of the two days, Morris is feeling increasingly confident for the 2020 season which is now encountering delays and postponements due to the global concerns surrounding COVID-19.

“It was a really good test at Paul Ricard, CMR is very professional and the car was very, very quick,” said Morris.

“I did three laps at the start of the first day and stuck to the Bentley P2 and that time stood until the end of the day so I was really pleased.

“The co-drivers, Pierre-Alexandre [Jean] and Arjun [Maini], were very quick and did a great job. I was expecting to have to coach them a little more, but they were close to the pace and I was impressed with the performances they delivered.

“I moved over to work with M-Sport on day two and did long runs, I completed about 400 kilometres on one afternoon so that was hard work but rewarding.”

Championship organiser SRO Motorsports Group has confirmed the planned full seasons for both the GT World Challenge Europe and Intercontinental GT Challenge, which began back in January in Australia, will go ahead – albeit delayed during the current pandemic.

The GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup is scheduled to start at Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit in the UK in May.