Michelin Ginetta G50 Cup title contender Carl Breeze held on to his championship lead at Silverstone National Circuit today, Saturday, 21st August, with a fine second place finish during the 18th round of the 2010 season.

The Total Control Racing driver, who heads the standings by 10 points heading into Sunday’s 22-lap encounter, just missed out on pole position by a mere 0.071 seconds in qualifying but he ended up starting the race from first place when Chris Dittmann was ruled out with a broken driveshaft.

Getting away well at the start, Breeze led until mid-distance when chief title rival Frank Wrathall attacked at Becketts following mild contact between the pair. With the TCR man pushed wide, he was unable to try and wrest the place back and in the end had to settle for second.

Although disappointed to miss out on the win, yet another podium finish means Breeze holds on to a fair cushion at the head of the standings and with the starting order for tomorrow’s 19th round based on the finishing positions from today’s race, he’ll line-up on the front row again.

Team-mate Joachim Ritter qualified within only 0.7 seconds of the round 18 pole position time but such is the competitiveness of the G50 Cup around Silverstone’s short, 1.64-mile National Circuit this placed him 15th on the grid. Running within roughly a second of Breeze’s race pace, Ritter finished the outing in 13th place – one spot behind 2008 Champion Nigel Moore.

TCR team principal Lee Brookes commented: “We’re happy with second place for Carl, obviously we’d have preferred the win but he was pushed slightly wide at Becketts on lap 10 and that enabled Frank (Wrathall) to go through. He was also struggling with the brakes a bit so we need to find a cure for that. Joachim’s result keeps him in the championship top 10 so that’s important for him.”