A long-awaited second win of the 2014 Michelin Ginetta GT Supercup championship went the way of Luke Davenport in the third and final race of last weekend’s visit to Knockhill, one which he said he had to work very hard for.
The success came in arguably the tightest weekend of the season, Davenport only 0.183s off the pace of United Autosports team-mate Carl Breeze in qualifying, the lap only warranting eighth on the grid despite the pace similarities.
Davenport was unfortunate to be involved in a tangle at Scotsman Corner which also contained Tom Oliphant and debutant Rory Bryant on the opening lap of race one, recovering to ninth as a switch to wet tyres made him the fastest man on track in a late shower.
Race two saw the Brands Hatch winner move up to sixth and claim the reverse-grid pole, holding off the attentions of Andrew Watson, Breeze and Charlie Robertson in a thrilling final race.
“It was a really busy one. Really busy”, a relieved Davenport told TCF afterwards. “I had to look in the mirrors an awful lot.
“The pace has been there all weekend and we’ve been about a tenth off of Carl [Breeze], and bringing the brakes off into a few corners was what I was working on trying to pull a gap and have a single seater-style win miles ahead of everyone!
“That wasn’t to be and so I had to defend very hard – I may have even over-defended a little bit.”
The win came off the back of a perfectly-perceived plan for race two, where Davenport matched his intentions of climbing into the top six to be in with a shot at moving to the front for race three on the reverse-grid. His fight in race two resulted in just that, culminating in a win he says came as a big relief.
“It’s a big relief. I knew I had to get a good couple of laps in at the start of race two and clear the back of the pack to be in with a shot at the reverse-grid race, and that’s exactly what happened.
“In race one, if there had been just another two laps then I probably could have won it with the pace that everybody was going at.”
Davenport now lies a comfortable sixth in the championship, but said that his second win of the season gives him peace of mind for 2015 as he and United Autosports continue to find more pace from the car.
He concluded by saying: “So long as we keep learning and get quicker, then I just want to bring something promising up for the future.
“It’s been a great weekend for us all round hasn’t it? We’ve won all three races and had a one-two in the last, so it’s all smiles at the moment.”
