Tim Harvey made it 10 wins from 12 races in the Porsche Carrera Cup GB at Snetterton (Sunday 8 August). However, a last lap moment left his margin of victory over Michael Caine at just five-hundredths of a second.
Ollie Jackson completed a fine weekend with a second pro-am1 victory, while Paul Mace clinched the pro-am2 win. A second overall podium earned Stephen Jelley the 'driver of the weekend' award, while Team Parker Racing took the 'team of the weekend' award.
Having saved his best set of tyres for the second race of the day when he started from pole position, Harvey (Red Line Racing) got the jump at the start over Caine (Motorbase Performance) and led all the way. However, with both drivers at the top of their game, they were incredibly evenly matched and the gap was never more than two seconds. Then, in the closing stages, Harvey came up to lap a couple of slower cars and into Russell for the last time he ran wide over the kerbs. In an instant, Caine saw his chance and almost pulled up alongside on the sprint to the flag. The final margin was 0.054s, less than half a car's length.
"That was cutting it a bit fine," said a relieved Harvey. "I caught the backmarkers at all the wrong times and I ended up on the kerb. I just sneaked across the line." Caine thought Christmas had come early, but could not quite get level as they raced to the flag. "We were bang on the same pace," he said of his on-going battle with Harvey. Jelley (Team Parker Racing) completed a good weekend with another third place, but reckoned he would have been closer to Caine but for a handling problem that developed during the race. "To start with the car was fantastic, then I had a couple of big moments," said Jelley.
A fine fourth went to Michael Meadows (Red Line Racing) who worked ahead of Glynn Geddie (Team Parker Racing) when the Scot put a wheel on the grass at Coram. Behind Geddie was pro-am1 winner Jackson (Addison Lee Motorbase) in sixth overall after a very strong drive. "The car was absolutely spot on," said Jackson, who extended his pro-am1 title lead as Tony Gilham (Collins ReDesign Racing) battled ahead of Jonas Gelzinis (Juta Racing) late in the race. "We had to guess the set-up after the incident in the first race," said Gilham. "I had understeer all race, but I managed to pressure Gelzinis into a mistake."
Mace (GT Marques) was always the class of pro-am2 and ran home a clear winner as Glenn McMenamin (Red Line Racing) held off George Richardson (Motorbase Performance) for second place. "I was staying with the pro-am1 cars, but decided to make sure of pro-am2 victory," said Mace. Meanwhile, McMenamin drove a sterling race, having been forced to use the tyres that had completed the first race. A high-speed spin in qualifying had wrecked his other set of tyres; so second place was a damage limitation exercise. Richardson stalled on the line, but raced hard to catch McMenamin and attacked several times over the closing laps.
