at ThruxtonDamien Faulkner won round seven of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB at Thruxton today (Saturday, 3 June) as a puncture put Richard Westbrook out of the lead of an action-packed race. Starting second on the grid, Westbrook (Team Irwin with Red Line Racing) got the jump on Faulkner (Team Parker with SAS) to lead the pack into Allard as Tim Harvey (Motorbase Performance) slotted into third. Further back, a first corner tangle eliminated David Ashburn (Trackspeed) and delayed Jason Young (Red Line Racing) and Mike Richards (IN2RACING).Up front, Westbrook soon started to edge away and stretched his lead to two seconds by lap eight. Meanwhile, Harvey was running a safe, if rather lonely, third and Sascha Maassen (Porsche Cars GB) was holding off Michael Caine (Motorbase Performance) for fourth.Into the second half of the race, however, Westbrook’s lead started to reduce as Faulkner closed in once more. Then, on lap 14, Westbrook knew he had a problem. “I hit something really hard, I think it was debris on the track,” reported Westbrook. “I took the risk to stay out, but two laps later the tyre went bang at Allard.”While Westbrook limped back to the pits, Faulkner was left with a useful margin over Harvey and took the flag three seconds clear of his chief championship rival. “We badly needed that and the team really deserves the win,” said Faulkner. “This is my first win at Thruxton, so it’s really special.” Harvey ran a consistent race to take second, and was joined on the podium by team mate Caine after a last lap move took him ahead of Maassen.“I knew that team boss David Bartrum would kill me if I threw it off trying to get second,” admitted Caine. “But I decided to have a go over the last two laps and on the last lap I carried a lot more speed through Church and got by on the straight! It’s just the result we needed.”Jason Templeman (Team Parker with SAS) had to work hard to get ahead of Nigel Rice (Red Line Racing) and then Sam Edwards (Team Parker Racing) before taking fifth, while sixth overall was enough to secure pro-am victory for Edwards after a fine performance. “At the start my car was really good, but the track got very slippery later. I’m well pleased with the win,” said Edwards after his first pro-am victory.Rice could well have run Edwards close for pro-am spoils, but spun out on ninth lap when a rear tyre punctured at Village. He had been tucked in behind the Edwards/Templeman battle at the time. Also out with tyre dramas after the first corner clash went Young, while Mark Cole’s impressive charge from the back of the grid took him to seventh before a rear tyre went down at Church on his Tech 9 Motorsport car. “Seventh was okay and I was driving within myself,” said a disappointed Cole.Phil Quaife (Motorbase Performance) ran a solid race to seventh and second in pro-am, while Mark Hazell (Team Parker Racing) had his best race of the season to complete the pro-am podium, despite being involved in the first corner incident. “I stuck at it, but that was hard work. It’s good to be on the podium!”Provisional results - 21 laps:

1 Damien Faulkner (Team Parker with SAS)          27m06.071s2 Tim Harvey (Motorbase Performance)              27m08.917s3 Michael Caine (Motorbase Performance)           27m16.730s4 Sascha Maassen (Porsche Cars GB)                27m17.465s5 Jason Templeman (Team Parker with SAS)          27m22.276s6 Sam Edwards (Team Parker Racing)                27m34.388s7 Phil Quaife (Motorbase Performance)             27m39.669s8 Mark Hazell (Team Parker Racing)                28m06.167s9 Mike Richards (IN2RACING)                       28m09.801s10 Andy Purdie (Paragon)                          28m14.266s