Team Parker Racing earned two more podium positions in the latest round of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB at Snetterton in Norfolk, thanks to third place in each of the two races for Stephen Jelley.
The former British Touring Car Championship star proved the competitiveness of his machine by taking fastest lap in the second of the races, and has now moved level for third place in the championship table with team-mate Euan Hankey.
Unfortunately, Hankey did not have results up to his usual standard at Snetterton. The Porsche scholarship winner claimed a useful fifth place in race one, but was a disappointed 10th later on. It was much better for Glynn Geddie, who took his Team Parker Racing machine to a fourth and a fifth to equal his best weekend points tally of the season and strengthen his hold on fifth in the championship.
Jelley qualified a fine third for both races. Although he was satisfied with the position, he felt he should have been closer to the pole position times. “Everyone says the other drivers at the front are very experienced in Porsches, but you can say that until the cows come home. I’ve got to find out what they’re doing – and they’re not just twiddling their thumbs.”
The Leicester driver did his best to do just that in the first race, shadowing the leading pair until he flat-spotted his front-left tyre under braking for the Esses. “That had been one of my strong points, but I had to peg myself back there,” he said. In the second race, Jelley was jumped by the meteorite start of team-mate Geddie, but repassed his Aberdeen compadre with a sweet move on the opening lap before taking another clear third, with fastest lap.
Geddie climbed to fourth in the opening race from sixth on the grid. He felt that he could have pressed Jelley, but by the time he made it into fourth the gap was too big to the cars ahead. As well as that, he had an understeer problem. From fifth on the grid for race two, he launched to third at the start, but then lost out to Jelley and a few laps in he ran wide at the fast Coram curve, dropping to fifth. “It felt good at first and then understeered again,” he said. “That’s what put me on the grass.”
Hankey qualified eighth for both races, confessing to errors on his first set of tyres. When he fitted the second set, the session was red-flagged twice, scuppering any hopes of improvement. He battled hard to take fifth in race one, but ran wide on the opening lap of race two and could only manage 10th. The Somerset driver felt he was lacking straight-line speed and is looking forward to an engine change before the next round.
Irishman Michael Leonard returned to the team to compete in the pro-am 1 class. He needed a pit-stop in the opening race due to a tyre being flat-spotted. He made a fabulous start in race two to run in the top 10 overall and top three in class, but made a mistake on the second lap and lost places, finally claiming fifth in class.
The team has also added Alex Martin to its line-up for the rest of the season. Martin was the victim of an unfortunate incident in qualifying that damaged his radiator, but climbed the field well to claim seventh in pro-am 1 in the second race.
Team principal Stuart Parker summed up: “The reality is this weekend we were fast enough to be on the front row and to do it on race pace, but we’ve got to prove that. The frustrating thing is that Stephen was the fastest for the first 14 laps, then we had a bad period, then he was fastest again. We just need to find the consistency to match the speed.”
The Porsche Carrera Cup GB again enjoyed live coverage of its second race at Snetterton on ITV4, and was streamed live on itv.com.
The next round takes place on the Silverstone National circuit on August 21/22.
