Three podium finishes, two of them courtesy of Stephen Jelley, provided a strong return for Team Parker Racing from the latest round of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB at Oulton Park, but it was Euan Hankey’s second place in race one that was the squad’s best result of the weekend.
Hankey was chased home by Jelley and Glynn Geddie in a Team Parker Racing 2-3-4 in the first race. Later on, Jelley was third again in race two and Geddie fifth, while Hankey finished a long way down the field after an unfortunate incident at the start with team-mate Geddie.
Geddie, who retains his position as leading Parker driver in the championship in third place, also topped the squad in qualifying. The Aberdeen driver was third fastest, just 0.249 seconds off pole and narrowly ahead of Somerset man Hankey (in fourth) and Leicestershire ace Jelley (fifth). The drivers’ second fastest times decided the grid for race two, and Hankey was third, having been knocked off the front row only in the closing minutes of the session, with Jelley fourth and Geddie fifth.
“Traffic was a nightmare,” said Geddie. “It was just a shame I couldn’t get my second lap together.”
Hankey nudged the tyre stack at the Hislop’s chicane. “It damaged the steering but I’d already done the times I needed,” he said. “I could have got more from my first set of tyres, but I made a mistake at the last corner. On my second set I just didn’t hook up my sectors.”
Both Hankey and Geddie had collisions on their way into the first corner after lightning starts, and Hankey in particular was aggrieved that a bash from series leader Tim Harvey prevented him from mounting a challenge for the race lead.
From then on he settled into second place, while Jelley attacked Geddie, whose steering had been knocked askew, and finally made it through into third place on the fifth lap of 18.
Geddie applied pressure to Jelley, before simultaneous mistakes from Hankey and Geddie at Hislop’s meant that Jelley was now challenging for second. Hankey was relieved to hold on. “I’m definitely happy with coming second from fourth on the grid,” he grinned. “I’m going to have words with Tim because that was bad driving, but we hit wheel to wheel so I’m lucky it didn’t damage the car worse. Then I made the biggest mistake ever at Hislop’s and Stephen was right on me!”
Jelley was happy too. “My rear tyres went away, but once I readjusted the brake bias I was able to stay tidy and had the pace. I just needed another couple of laps.”
Again it was Geddie who bolted at the start of race two, but he collided with Hankey, putting Geddie down to fifth and Hankey into the tyre wall, from which he extracted his car and continued after a pit-stop.
Ahead of them, Jelley put in another solid drive to third after challenging the leading pair in the opening laps - and narrowly missing the Hankey/Geddie collision at the start! “There were a couple of places where I could have been more aggressive, but there’s a fine art to driving these cars,” said the ex-Touring Car and Formula 3 race winner. Geddie, meanwhile, struggled on with steering rack damage but collected another useful haul of points.
Team principal Stuart Parker said: “The weekend promised so much but ultimately it was a bit frustrating. Qualifying didn’t go exactly to plan and we hoped to get the cars higher up. The 2-3-4 was a fantastic result, but we just need to calm things down and work together more to make progress and try for a 1-2-3.”
The Porsche Carrera Cup GB enjoyed live coverage of both of its races from Oulton Park on ITV4. The series now moves to Croft in North Yorkshire for the next round, on June 19/20.
