Michael Meadows leads the championship after the first weekend (Photo Credit: Gary Parravani/xynamic.com)
After the disappointment of losing a victory to a penalty in the weekend's opening encounter Michael Meadows got to keep his win after crossing the line ahead in the second Porsche Carrera Cup GB race of the Brands Hatch Indy weekend.
Meadows led the race from flag to flag, shadowed for the entire duration by an impressive Daniel Lloyd, who bounced back from his own disappointment from the first race by taking second place. Race one winner, Richard Plant lined up third on the grid set by drivers' second fastest times from qualifying. However, with a poor first lap he slipped back sixth at the end of the first 1.2 mile, his misery later compounded as he was penalised for false start, dropping his further out of contention.
At the front Meadows, Lloyd, Jonas Gelzinis and Sam Tordoff were closely packed though there were few challenges for position despite the sole second that split the quartet at the line on some of the early laps. That gap only opened up in the second half of the race as Team Parker Racing driver Tordoff drifted backwards into a safe fourth place, clear of Glynn Geddie and Ben Barker who exchanged possession of fifth on the road in the closing laps.
Barker, and his chromed Parr Motorsport car, had been pushed into a half spin at the bottom of Paddock Hill on the first lap, falling back to thirteenth. However, he made quick work of slicing through the ProAm1 battle, eventually passing Geddie with two laps left to take fifth place.
Geddie was sixth on the road, but suffered the same five second penalty punishment as Meadows in race one, the additional time dropping him behind Chris Dymond and Richard Plant, who ended his own comeback drive – which included the fastest lap of the race – in seventh place with Geddie slotting into eighth.
After deciding the overall race win in race one, the stewards had their say in the ProAm1 and 2 battles for race two. Ahmad Al–Harthy and Jean Glorieux lost the victories in their respective classes to their own five second penalties.
Glorieux's punishment gave the ProAm2 win to Tautvydas Bartstys, the Lithuanian beating race one winner Will Goff by just a tenth of a second over the 34 lap race, Belgian Glorieux taking the final step on the podium. The fourth driver in ProAm2 – Tania Mann – ended her race weekend with a visit to the Paddock Hill gravel trap at the race's half way point.
ProAm1 victory went to Oly Mortimer – another driver who retired from race one. Al-Harthy fought past Michael Leonard before the Irishman's retirement after seven laps, but was awarded only the points for third place as the penal five seconds dropped him between Celtic Speed's George Brewster and single-seater convert Victor Jiminez.
Derek Pierce – ProAm1 victor in the first race – was put out in a fist corner crash. Contact with Al-Harthy, then Rory Butcher sent Pierce spinning into the tyre barrier on the outside of the corner.
Pro class driver Butcher pitted with puncture at the end of the opening lap, limiting the Scotsman to just 13th place overall – the lowest of the nine drivers in the series' premier category.
