Tom Sharp took his eighth win of the Michelin Ginetta GT Supercup season at Silverstone National Circuit, Saturday, 15th October, to keep his outside hopes of the 2011 title alive – third place for championship leader Carl Breeze though, added to the bonus point for fastest lap, means he continues to head the standings from second place finisher Adam Morgan.
Ciceley Racing’s Morgan struck the first blow during qualifying by shading Breeze for the round 26 pole position by a mere 0.026 seconds with George Murrells, who missed the previous event at Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit, an excellent third quickest – just 0.045 seconds further adrift.
Nathan Freke was fourth fastest in his theplayer.co.uk/Century Motorsport car, just 0.032 seconds clear of hugely impressive newcomer Jamie Orton for Total Control Racing with IDL’s Sharp rounding out the top six qualifiers.
Morgan held his advantage at the start initially but Breeze was determined to get ahead and just managed to squeeze his TCR-run Ginetta up the inside on the run into Copse. Freke, making the best getaway of any of the lead group, attempted to go around the outside of both but had to settle for second behind Breeze with Morgan demoted to third.
Into Brooklands, Freke tried to challenge Breeze on the inside but there was contact and the delay for both enabled Sharp to swoop through into the lead, Morgan too losing out as he avoided the coming together. Breeze did manage to recover in third place but Freke slipped out of contention.
Further behind at Becketts, G50 Cup class competitors Aaron Williamson and Louise Richardson had an unfortunate coming together of their own – the result being a heavy impact with the driver’s door of Richardson’s car. Racing continued for another four laps before the Safety Car was deployed and then, unsurprisingly, red flags were shown in order to allow the incident to be safely dealt with.
For the re-start, Sharp had pole position and led away well from Morgan with Murrells taking third off Breeze and Freke and Colin White battling fiercely over fifth place. Despite being under huge pressure from Morgan, Sharp held firm and on lap 13 he took the flag a mere 0.4 seconds clear.
He said: “Sometimes everything just goes your way really and I think that happened for us today. I couldn’t see exactly what happened but it looked like Nathan had all-four wheels locked-up and he slid into Carl. Then a couple of doors opened – Adam, being the wise one, decided to back out of it but I just shot across the green turf and that was it!
“At the re-start, I got probably the best start I have all year. I really didn’t think we had anymore left in the clutch really. The car’s not been the best this weekend, the guys did a massive repair job after the accident at Brands – the chassis held intact though which shows how strong the car is. I’m delighted with this win, anything can happen in the last race so we’ll keep trying as hard as we can.”
Morgan saw off Murrells initially and then Breeze over the course of the last couple of laps when the TCR man got ahead of the Optimum driver for third with a great pass at Luffield. As with the gap to the race winner, nothing separated Morgan and Breeze at the flag – just 0.3 seconds the difference.
“I made it hard work for myself with a bad start off the line, then Nathan and Carl came through but at Luffield they collided”, explained Morgan, “I thought I was going to go off with them but then I anchored on and Tom got me. From there I just played it safe, I’m happy with second as it’s good points and it all goes down to tomorrow for the championship. We know what we have to do.”
Breeze added: “We managed to pull it back after the contact on the first lap. We had a bit of damage to the rear of the car but before the re-start the team couldn’t touch the car. Initially it looked like we were struggling after the re-start but I dug deep. The race was there to be won today but the points we got in the end were monumental for the championship – it’s all to play for tomorrow.”
Murrells held on to fourth comfortably, Freke finished in fifth and White took sixth place. David McDonald, who normally races in the British GT Championship, was himself on for a terrific fifth place but was forced to pit with bodywork damage to the rear of his car on lap nine.
In the G50 Cup class, Tom Ingram – who wrapped-up the title during the previous event at Brands Hatch – elected to sit-out this weekend’s racing. Mark Johnston, who made his championship debut at Brands, starred in qualifying to take the class pole position but the win went to Tollbar’s Jake Hill.
Having qualified fourth in class, Hill had plenty of work to do but after climbing into second in G50 prior to the red flag stoppage he went on to complete the job with an excellent top eight overall finish in the second part of round 26, finishing just a second shy of Freddie Hetherington’s G55.
Andrew Richardson took second place, a great drive from fifth in class on the original grid, with Johnston taking third ahead of Mark Davies – the latter making his return to the GT Supercup after provisionally securing the Ginetta Challenge title last weekend on Silverstone’s Grand Prix track. Orton, meanwhile, finished 14th behind Davies after a poor start ruined his great qualifying effort.
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