Nathan’s eleven
A great season including 11 wins mark out Nathan Freke as the man to beat in the Michelin Ginetta G50 Cup, as the championship heads to Rockingham this weekend.
Nathan Freke may have had a slow start to the Michelin Ginetta G50 Cup season but he has made up for it since he first bagged a win at Donington in May. The former Formula Ford Champion has been in great form since then and even won six races on the bounce mid-season to overhaul early-season championship leader Carl Breeze. Nathan took a full house of three wins at Silverstone last time out to come to Rockingham 94 points clear of Frank Wrathall with six races to go. He remains the man to beat although Frank is getting quicker all the time and may well prove to be a race winner this weekend.
Former karting star Wrathall has moved himself ahead of Carl Breeze in the title race. Breeze looked strong at the start of the season, winning two of the three races at Brands Hatch with Frank taking the other. However, his season suffered a major setback at Oulton Park when he spun and was hot by another car. His reshelled 3.5-litre G50 wasn’t behaving at Croft and then he lost points at Silverstone when the TCR team ran him on wets in race three – on a drying track.... He took just five points away from the race; Freke took 36.
Breeze’s TCR team-mate Fulvio Mussi was another who went for the wrong tyres at Silverstone but still lies fourth in the championship, despite a wrecked car forcing him to miss two Donington races, while Tom Sharp lies fifth after producing some stirring overtaking moves at Silverstone last time out.
Look, too, for the spectacular duo of Julien Draper and Joachim Ritter, both of whom are capable of running in the top six, while Ben Hetherington gets better all the time and should be vying for a podium finish here.
New to the Michelin Ginetta G50 Cup this year is the Chairman’s Cup for the over 40s, amateur racers. Life has been frantic here, too, with multiple National Hot Rod champion Colin White setting the pace in his maiden year in these cars. Paul Sheard, another ex-oval racer, heads the chasing pack from Richard Sykes who has made occasional forays into GT racing this year in his Speedworks-run car.
Proof of the growing popularity of the Michelin Ginetta G50 Cup has been a rise in entry levels. Neil Houston, a stalwart Ginetta enthusiast graduated from G20s to G50s at Silverstone and is racing both here and at Brands Hatch at the end of the season. He could well be a factor on the Chairman’s Cup, too...
Michael Broadhurst went well at Silverstone for the Welch Motorsport team and has committed for the last two events, while Adam Morgan steps up from G20s this weekend for the front-running DynoJet team.
It is almost looking as though it is Freke’s title to lose, but that won’t stop him aiming for race wins. Wrathall and Breeze are going to have to work hard to stop him.
Qualifying begins at 10.45 on Saturday September 19 with race one (over 10 laps) starting at 14.15. Sunday’s races are both longer at 16 laps each and blast off at 10.35 and 15.55.
