Jake Hill took a largely unchallenged first win of 2010 during the second round of the Ginetta Junior Championship at Thruxton, Sunday, 4th April, and in doing so also moved to the top of the driver standings.
Sealing a late deal to race with renowned Ginetta Junior team Tollbar this weekend, the 16-year-old led from pole position and didn’t come under any real threat until lap seven when second placed Chris Swanwick mounted an unsuccessful challenge at the complex. As both cars touched, Swanwick came off worse and eventually ended the race in seventh place.
Sharing the podium with Hill were Alex Austin, a fine drive rewarded with second position, and David Moore for whom third place was his second career rostrum. Louise Richardson, who lost her round one podium finish after being penalised for gaining an unfair advantage in Saturday’s race, ended the second race in fourth – tantalisingly close to the podium again.
Speaking after round two, race winner Hill said: “This weekend has been a great start to the year and today’s race was absolutely brilliant. After the contact with Chris (Swanwick) I wasn’t as fast but the car held on well to the end, thanks to the team for giving me such a good car. Last year was a real struggle for us but 2010 is a whole new start, I’m so happy.”
Hill led away well at the start of round two and although Tom Ingram wasn’t able to get away from the line as quickly, he tucked-in behind in second position after fending off the challenge from third placed Richardson who had managed to get ahead of Swanwick. At the complex though, Richardson lost out to Swanwick and at the chicane she lost a further place to Austin, up from eighth on the grid.
Leading by eight 10ths of a second into lap two, Hill set about building a bigger cushion over the chasing pack and this he achieved. By lap four, the Tollbar driver had a 1.5 second advantage over second placed Swanwick with Austin third, Richardson fourth and David Moore fifth.
Round one winner Ingram was now in sixth place having lost pace over the previous two laps and post-race it became clear as to the reason, the Hillspeed racer struggling with a slow puncture which compromised his performance.
On lap five, David Moore started to apply more pressure to Richardson as he strived for the podium but Louise was, in turn, trying to wrest third position away from Austin. Second placed Swanwick managed to break away from this trio as he set about trying to get his Team Parker Racing car on terms with Hill at the front.
Through the immensely fast Village and Church sequence of right-hand corners, Swanwick got a fantastic run on lap six and as the lead pair headed into the chicane there was nothing between them. Into lap seven though at the complex, Swanwick’s hard work was undone when contact with Hill led to a spin and the incident also delayed Richardson who was fourth at the time.
Although unable to lap as quickly as he had previously, Hill maintained a good gap at the front over the final two laps and took the chequered flag almost 2.5 seconds clear of Austin – the FML driver capping off an excellent race performance with a richly deserved second place.
David Moore held on to third place, 1.4 seconds behind Austin, with Richardson fourth, Ingram in fifth place and Eurotech Racing’s Sarah Moore in sixth ahead of Swanwick. TJ Motorsport pairing Tom Howard and Jody Fannin finished in eighth and ninth, albeit with 11 seconds between them, ahead of Adam Bonham.
Commenting on his great drive from eighth to second place, Austin said: “I struggled during Saturday’s race but today was definitely a leap forward for me. I went for the championship last year but I had a lot of bad luck during the second half of the season so this year I’m determined to improve on that and challenge for the title.”
Third placed David Moore added: “It was a good race, I was quite far back to start with but managed to come through quite well. Towards the end I had some trouble with the gearbox so I was glad to hold on to third really. It’s a good start to the year for me so hopefully we can build on this and maybe challenge for a win later in the season.”
There are just three weeks to wait until the next action-packed instalment of the Ginetta Junior Championship with rounds three and four of the 2010 season taking place on 24th/25th April at Rockingham in Northamptonshire.
Provisional 2010 Ginetta Junior Championship Positions (after Rd2):1st Jake Hill, 58pts; 2nd Tom Ingram, 55pts; 3rd David Moore, 52pts; 4th Chris Swanwick, 46pts; 5th Alex Austin, 46pts; 6th Louise Richardson, 44pts
