Scotsman Fergus Walkinshaw showed promising pace on his FW Motorsport team’s race debut at his homeland circuit of Knockhill (Saturday), in the first of three Michelin Ginetta GT Supercup battles at the Fife circuit this weekend.
The 22 year-old once again proved to be a frontrunner in qualifying; topping the timesheets early on, a top-five time looked a certainty until midway through the 20-minute session. Walkinshaw had just posted a purple sector time, ranking fastest through sector one and three tenths of a second up on his previous best time, when the session was red flagged and he had to settle for eighth place.
Confident that there was plenty more pace to come from the FW Motorsport Ginetta G55, the team owner/driver gained a steady start to retain a top 10 position in the early stages of round 18. By lap four, Walkinshaw was setting consecutive personal best lap times to earn a 1.5 second advantage over Colin White while closing within 0.5 seconds of Reece Somerfield.
Walkinshaw’s hopes, however, of climbing up the order were dashed when a wheel wide at Scotsman corner caused the car to snap wide on to the grass on lap nine of 16. After a precautionary pitstop to clear the radiators and avoid the engine overheating, the Oxford Brookes University Automotive Engineering student rejoined the fray 21 seconds adrift but continued his charge to salvage some championship points.
He commented: “Our pace on the team’s first outing at my homeland circuit has been really encouraging. We ran well in the official TOCA test on Friday and our potential was clear in qualifying, so I was gutted that my fastest lap charge was called short by the red flag.
“Everything was going to plan and I was building our pace nicely in the race, I just put a wheel onto the dirt. I saved the slide but then the car snapped and I went wide on to the grass. After losing an engine at Snetterton we weren’t going to risk overheating so I had to pit. We know we have the pace and the potential, so I’ll be pushing hard to climb my way up from the back of the grid in race two tomorrow.”
The Michelin Ginetta GT Supercup will kick-off an action-packed day of racing at Knockhill tomorrow (Sunday) with round 19 taking place at 09.00, and the third and final series battle of the weekend scheduled for 15.00, shown live on ITV4.s-
