Rockingham next for Porsche Carrera Cup GB

A 27-car field will line-up at Rockingham over the weekend of 24/25 April for rounds three and four of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB. With at least eight potential race winners and great battles for the pro-am1 and pro-am2 categories in prospect, it should be a great weekend of racing at the challenging Speedway near Corby in Northamptonshire.The fact that Tim Harvey (Red Line Racing) emerged with a double victory in the opening weekend of the season at Thruxton came as no surprise. The changeable weather and the unique high-speed challenge of the Hampshire track played into the hands of the most experienced driver in the championship and he duly delivered a faultless performance. In the opening race, Michael Caine (Motorbase Performance) made it a one-two for the old guard, but it was the pace of championship newcomer Euan Hankey (Team Parker Racing) that was the big story of the second race.In his first weekend of racing out of a single-seater, Hankey was mighty as he harried Harvey all the way to the flag. "If that’s the pace that Euan has at this stage of the season, it’s going to be hard work,” said Harvey on the podium. Clearly Hankey, one of the Carrera Cup GB Scholarship winners for 2010, is going to be a big force to be reckoned with and will surely feature strongly at Rockingham.Caine is always in the hunt for race wins while Tom Bradshaw, one of the 2009 Scholarship winners, showed strong pace at Thruxton with the JHR squad and will surely maintain that momentum at Rockingham. Added to the strong pro category are Scholarship racer Michael Meadows (Red Line Racing), former BTCC winner Stephen Jelley (Team Parker Racing) and Charles Bateman (Motorbase Performance), while Glynn Geddie (Team Parker Racing) has lots of natural talent and will be eager to put a fairly frustrating Thruxton weekend firmly behind him.The competition continues in the pro-am1 and pro-am2 categories, and both delivered tremendous contests and very close finishes at Thruxton. Ollie Jackson (Addison Lee Motorbase) and Tony Gilham (ReDesign Racing) are the two most experienced drivers in pro-am1 and they took a win apiece in Hampshire. However, two drivers new to the Carrera Cup really made their mark with podium finishes at Thruxton and they will want more of the same here at Rockingham.Ahmad Al Harthy (Red Line Racing) from Oman has good UK experience from Formula Renault, but has now switched to the Carrera Cup and impressed everyone with his pace over the opening weekend of the season. Meanwhile, Jonas Gelzinis (Juta Racing) from Lithuania has never seen any of the UK tracks, but made very rapid progress at Thruxton and marked himself out as a real talent.Pro-am2 was not to be outdone at Thruxton, with some great racing and a spectacularly close finish for the second race as just 1.7s covered the top four cars after nearly half an hour of racing. Mark Hazell (JHR) had the dream start to the season with a double win, but twice he had to deal with a big challenge from Steve Parish (Addison Lee Motorbase). Glenn McMenamin (Red Line Racing) and George Brewster (Celtic Speed) were right there as well, while young George Richardson (Motorbase Performance), Paul Hogarth (IN2Racing) and Bob Lyons (Celtic Speed) add still further to the front runners in pro-am2.Carrera Cup qualifying is on Saturday at 11.15, with the first race at 16.10 on Saturday and the second race at 13.15 on Sunday. Sunday's race is due to be shown live on ITV4 in the extensive BTCC race day programme.


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