Jake Hill cruised home to victory in Round 9 of 2010 Ginetta Junior Championship to secure his first Saturday afternoon victory of the season, in the process continuing his record of winning at every round of the season so far. After securing his fourth pole position of the year in qualifying, the youngster held off early pressure before pulling away for a comfortable victory.
The Tollbar Racing driver was joined on the front row of the grid by main championship rival Tom Ingram. Behind, Louise Richardson and Alex Austin formed row two, with rookie Jody Fannin and reigning champion Sarah Moore on row three.
It was the pairing of Richardson and Austin who made the best starts as the race began, but were unable to squeeze a way past the front two as they headed to Clervaux for the first time. Hill held his lead as they headed around lap one, followed by Ingram, Richardson, Austin and Fannin, with Tom Howard moving up a position into sixth.
Unusually for the Juniors, there was limited action over the first couple of laps, with Hill pulling a small advantage at the front and the positions behind left unchanged. His lead was short lived though, a spin into the gravel by Piranha Motorsport's Ryan Ratcliffe on lap three causing yellow flags at Clervaux, allowing the group behind to bunch up on his tail.
Ingram tried to seize this opportunity to get to the front, but Hill was able to deal with everything thrown at him to maintain his lead. Ingram soon had to start defending his own position, with Richardson beginning to push him hard for second.
On lap four, Richardson's pressure paid off. Getting a better exit out of Tower Bend than Ingram, she held onto his bootlid through the Esses and forced her way through at Barcroft, pushing Ingram wide in the process. With momentum lost, Ingram was powerless to stop the next car of Austin moving alongside and taking another place, dropping Ingram down to fourth in the process.
Ingram wasn't going to give up a podium finish without a fight though and went on the offensive on the next lap. After nearly getting past at Tower, the Hillspeed driver slid past Austin at Barcroft for third, and quickly went after Richardson to try and get his second place back.
All the fighting behind allowed Hill to pull away at the front, with the teenager crossing the line with a five-second victory margin ahead of Richardson, who held onto second for her fifth podium finish of the year. Behind, an ambitious move into the hairpin for the final time left Austin alongside Ingram as they raced to the line, but Ingram was able to hold on to finish third, though only by the smallest of margins, 0.032 seconds. Fannin finished a comfortable fifth ahead of Howard in sixth, who might not have started at all after an off in qualifying left his TJ Motorsport team having to work very hard to get his car repaired in time for the race. Sarah Moore followed in seventh, with Adam Bonham, Chris Swanick and David Moore rounding out the top ten.
