It was Mini Mania at Silverstone this weekend as Jason Richardson leads the GRAND-AM 200 Challenge
Jason Richardson has shot straight to the top of the leader board of the Sunoco GRAND-AM 200 Challenge after a double race win at Silverstone. Hot on his heels is Andy Ruhan from GT Cup who also had a double win, however narrowly missed out on pole position in both qualifying sessions.
The first qualifying session was extremely close with Luke Caudle just having the edge, qualifying pole and scoring 20 points towards the challenge.
At the start of the first race Caudle lead the field; Chris Knox made a flying start to slot into second, closely followed by Richardson, Lee Allen and Sam Osborne. Richardson was soon in second and it was into the Village for the second time when Richardson decided to challenge for the lead. Caudle hung on for a few laps but had no response for Richardson who managed to gather a fantastic race pace and drove straight into first place gaining 100 points towards the challenge whilst Caudle in second received 75 points.
The fight for third was between Chris Knox and Sam Osborne, with Knox coming under pressure from Osborne after he had been dueling with Lee Allen. It was a five car train for a while with Allen towing the group onto Knox’s tailgate. Osborne eventually made it past Allen and came alongside Knox with a lap to go, but Knox held on and defended his position finishing third and gaining 55 points towards the challenge.
Osborne looked set for fourth place until Martin Depper came into the frame and snatched it on the last lap. Chris Smith had been in the mix too, but had to settle for seventh, scoring 20 points towards the challenge with Arthur Forster in eighth and Chris Panayiotou and Finlay Crocker completing the top 10 - all scoring points towards the Sunoco GRAND-AM 200 Challenge.
The second race saw another fight to the finish; with Allen originally out at the front and Richardson falling back. Knox again made a superb getaway but initially lost out to Osborne for second, before nosing ahead at the end of the opening lap, as Caudle followed him through.
By the end of lap five Richardson was moving up, having split Caudle and Osborne for third. Caudle really began to press Allen hard for the lead and despite running wide at Brooklands, he still held on. On lap six Caudle suddenly slowed after taking second gear too early and the engine management going into safe mode.
Having moved into second, Richardson started to reel in Allen as the clock ran down. The pair were nose to tail until the last couple of seconds when Richardson got his nose inside and took the chequered flag earning him another 100 points towards the challenge.
Silverstone also played host to the GT Cup first round and for those racers powered by Sunoco it was their first chance to earn points towards the Sunoco GRAND-AM 200 Challenge. Andy Ruhan in GT Cup Class 1 had a great race weekend, coming first in class in both races and also placing fastest lap in the second race. However with nine car cars in the class only 90% of points were awarded giving Ruhan a 99 average point score and straight into second place overall in the challenge.
With 90 registered racers across six series it will be a real fight to the top of the leader board! The next point scoring round will be the Legends 600 race at Donington Park this weekend.
Current top 10 standings:
Standings/ Driver Name/ Team/ Series/ Average Points Per Round 1 Jason Richardson Dart Motorsport MINI 130.00 2 Andy Ruhan JMH GT Cup class 1 99.00 3 Adrian Churchill Courtenay Sport PTC 90.00 4 Aaron Steele MSV F3 80.25 5 Chris Needham MSV F3 80.25 6 Stephen Treherne Handy Motorsport Legends 64.17 7 Josh Cook Cooksport PTC 63.00 8 Colin Broster ABG GT Cup class 2 63.00 9 Simon Belcher Handy Motorsport Legends 59.17 10 Luke Caudle EXCELR8 MINI 57.50
