Michael Meadows has become the 2012 Porsche Carrera Cup GB champion after a sixth win of the season at Silverstone.
His main title rival Ben Barker took victory in the weekend’s opening race as he looked to take the championship down to the final rounds at Brands Hatch in two weeks time, but victory in race two was enough to give Meadows, the series runner-up in 2011, the long-awaited crown
Barker headed into Silverstone as the man in form, having won the last four races on the bounce, and it looked like he was going to continue his domination in qualifying, taking pole for the opening race, through Meadows had other ideas, snatching pole for race two.
The opening race saw Barker take the win, but after finishing fourth the championship leader knew that if he finished ahead of Barker in race two, the title would be his.
With Barker only fifth on the grid, the odds were in his favour and a dominant win in front of 30,000 fans at his home track put Meadows out of reach of his rivals, even with two races still to run at Brands.
“It was really important to me to win the race,” said Meadows. “Ben Barker has dominated the last few races and I wanted to come to Silverstone and show that I hadn’t just settled for finishing fourth. I wanted to get pole and win.”
Meadows becomes the first Carrera Cup Scholarship winner to go on a take the overall title and the 25 year old paid tribute to the Scholarship programme.
“Winning the Scholarship and racing in the Carrera Cup has taught me what I needed to know about sports cars: from the right training to how to deal with the heat, how to deal with the media and how to drive a car like this quickly,” he added.
“This championship has some fantastic drivers and we’ve all been pushing each other this season. It’s just got massive over the last three years. This is the best championship on the BTCC package for driving standards. There is barely any contact at the front and everyone is super fast and driving really quick cars.”
Now, Meadows and the Redline team are focusing on the final two races of the season, with there being work still to be done.
“I want to go out on a high in the final two races at Brands Hatch. We’ve still got the teams’ championship to fight for, which is really important for Redline Racing. Everyone loves the Brands GP circuit and everyone will want to finish the season in style but the pressure is off now the title is won,” he concluded.