While it was Mark Davies who took a stunning lights-to-flag debut G55 victory in Round 25 of the 2012 Michelin Ginetta GT Supercup, it was a heart-breaking retirement for Tom Sharp that proved to be the race’s main talking point.
A cruel driveshaft failure before the race had even started means the IDL UK driver has lost the championship lead for the first time this season, with Carl Breeze benefitting to take a twelve point lead into the final two races of the campaign.
Richardson Racing’s Davies, making his first appearance in the championship’s premier class after winning the G50 class title last time out at Silverstone, started the race from pole position and a fantastic getaway saw him lead into Paddock Hill.
Tom Ingram slotted into second, while with Sharp missing from third on the grid, Breeze took up the position ahead of Jake Hill and a quick-starting Andrew Richardson, who jumped up to fifth from tenth on the grid.
Ingram put Davies under large amounts of pressure early on, but Ginetta veteran Davies soaked it all up and started to edge away, with Ingram ending up being the one to make a mistake, dropping him back to fifth. He soon gained a place back though when Richardson was forced into the pits to retire after a power steering failure.
The top four ran closely for the remainder of the race, but there were no further changes of position, with Davies his first win in a G55, while Breeze took second ahead of Hill and Ingram. Finishing fifth on his debut in a G55 was Max Coates, the G50 race-winner pipping Fergus Walkinshaw to the line by just 0.020s. Colin White took seventh ahead of Hunter Abbott, who managed to fight his way through the field to eighth after a problem delayed him at the start.
In the G50 class, Declan Jones relished the absence of class champion Davies to take an utterly dominant win, leading from lights to flag to take an eleven second victory, his second of the season.
Irishman Connaire Finn finished second on the opening lap, but he dropped back to fourth on lap two behind Rob Gaffney and Reece Somerfield. Gaffney maintained the place until lap six when he span coming out of Druids, eventually causing him to retire.
This promoted Somerfield up to second, the privateer taking his sixth podium of the season, while Finn dropped to fourth at the finish after his bonnet fell off, with Harry Cockill taking third, Finn finishing up ahead of Dan Norris-Jones.
