Team Parker Racing’s Stephen Jelley continued his strong progress in the Porsche Carrera Cup GB with a pair of third positions in the latest round at Silverstone, and the results have helped the Leicester man gain a narrow advantage over team-mates Euan Hankey and Glynn Geddie in their battle for third in the championship.
Aberdeen racer Geddie also put in strong battling performances, with a fifth and a sixth place, while Team Parker Racing’s leading contender in the pro-am1 class, Irishman Michael Leonard, secured his first pro-am1 podium finish of the 2010 season in only his fifth race of the year.
Geddie put in a stunning performance to blitz Friday’s test, but he and Hankey were pipped by Jelley in their intra-team qualifying battle. The trio were covered by just 0.068 seconds, with ex-BTCC racer Jelley taking fifth place.
Jelley made up a place to run fourth from the start, and then took third at half-distance in a beautiful move into the Brooklands left-hander. “It was similar to what I did to Fabrizio Giovanardi in the BTCC there last year!” he said. He then chased hard for second place but missed out by a mere 0.2 seconds after half an hour of racing.
Geddie lost out in some first-lap battling, dropping to ninth, but forced his way back in charging style. On the final lap he forced his way past team-mate Hankey to complete his recovery and take sixth place.
Jelley took fourth on the grid for race two, and again made up one place at the start. He chased hard for second place and momentarily passed 2008 Carrera Cup champion Tim Harvey for the position, but lost out again and was forced to settle for the final podium place once again.
Geddie was fifth in this race, but Hankey dropped from an early sixth to take eighth.
Jelley was happy with his results: “In qualifying I haven’t been maximising my tyres, but I can still do very good laps well into a race run. We changed the dampers for the first race and it was much better, but starting from fifth it was always going to be hard to get up there. In the second race I just went in a little bit too late in my move on Tim Harvey – just fractions – and it allowed him to repass me on the exit of the corner. From then on he was very good at stopping the car on the apex and getting a good exit.”
Geddie was frustrated not to translate his testing pace into qualifying speed, but was satisfied with progress in the races: “Everyone is so closely matched it’s so hard to overtake. I had pace at the start of the second race, but the yellow flags meant I couldn’t overtake at that point. We made a big improvement on pace. The results aren’t great but it’s encouraging for my home races at Knockhill next time out.”
Hankey was running a new engine and gearbox at this round, but was again frustrated not to be able to match the results he was achieving at the start of the season. “I’m pushing it so hard,” he said.
Leonard scored a third and a fifth in pro-am1, but felt it could have been even better. “I should’ve had second, but I was overtaking a backmarker and the guy behind took a dive on me and I ran out of room. I’m very happy with my pace this weekend, and to be just over half a second off overall pole position is very positive.”
Alex Martin was just two places behind Team Parker Racing team-mate Leonard in qualifying, but suffered from unfortunate incidents in the races and took a best position of ninth in pro-am1.
Team principal Stuart Parker remarked: “Stephen had a solid weekend. Qualifying wasn’t great but the first race was the best he’s ever driven with us, and in the second he was unlucky not to get second. His race pace is good but now he just needs to crack qualifying. Glynn had a really strong recovery in the first race, and Michael in that race did an excellent job.”
The Porsche Carrera Cup GB again enjoyed live coverage of both races at Silverstone on ITV4, and was streamed live on itv.com. The next round takes place at Knockhill in Fife on September 4/5.
