Total Control Racings Callum Pointon continued his consistently strong start to the Protyre Motorsport Ginetta GT5 Challenge season at Rockingham over the May Day Holiday weekend, the 18-year-old car racing rookie securing three solid points finishes for the Wednesbury team.
Ending the second race meeting of his debut season in cars with a career best seventh place during round four on Sunday, 5th May, the 18-year-old rookie added ninth position in round five and just missed out on another top 10 in the final encounter earlier today, Monday, 6th May.
Team-mate Neil Delargy, meanwhile, took his second top 10 finish of the year during round five, having been 15th in the opening race at the Northamptonshire tracks International Super Sportscar Long Circuit and 17th in the final outing of the weekend.
Pointon started in 11th position for round four and put together an excellent race, moving into eighth by mid-distance and managing to break into the top six soon after. Although edged back to seventh a couple of laps from the finish, the result marked yet another step forward for the youngster.
In round five, the Cheddleton teenager produced a good opening lap to climb into sixth but a small mistake on the second tour at Deene Hairpin dropped him down the order to 19th place. Mounting a fantastic recovery, Pointon sliced back through the field in his Ginetta G40 and climbed into the top 10 before, post-race, being elevated into ninth due to a penalty for a rival competitor.
The third and final race initially started well but at the third turn, the rear of Pointons car was tagged and he was shunted off the circuit. Recovering down in 22nd position, the TCR racer made incredible progress to finish just 0.8 seconds shy of the top 10 in 11th place.
In Sundays encounter, Delargy was bundled outside the top 20 on the opening lap but battled through to 15th in the end. In the first of todays races, the Acton-based businessman produced a strong showing and having been 18th into lap two he was up to 13th on lap three after some heavy shuffling of the mid-pack.
Into 11th shortly after, Delargy remained there until lap nine when the recovering Pointon moved ahead. On the final lap though, the seasoned campaigner re-took 11th place at the expense of Jason Kennythe double gold medal winning Olympic cyclist. Unfortunately for Delargy, round six wasnt as fruitful and he had to settle for 17th place.
Callum was happy with his performance this weekend and so were we, he had a good race on Sunday and was strong again today, said team principal Lee Brookes, Hes definitely come on well and Im sure we can get him up on the podium before too long, hes improving all the time. It was good to see Neil get a top 10 as well, overall its not been a bad weekend really.
Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit in Northamptonshire will host the next three rounds of the Protyre Motorsport Ginetta GT5 Challenge on 25th/26th May.
Provisional 2013 Protyre Motorsport Ginetta GT5 Challenge Standings (after Rd6):9th Callum Pointon, 70pts; 12th Neil Delargy, 53pts
