Seb Morris took victory in a dramatic Round One of the 2011 Ginetta Junior Championship. The Hillspeed driver overcame a full race restart to take the win, continuing on the success that saw him win the recent Ginetta Junior Winter Series.
From second on the grid, a great start for Morris saw him take the lead from pole sitter Jake Giddings as they headed into Paddock Hill bend for the first time. Behind though, pushing between Struan Moore, Niall Murray and Myles Collins ended with the latter being speared across the track, hitting the barriers at the inside of the Paddock at high speed.
Collins fortunately walked away from the incident, but the race was instantly red flagged to allow the Marshals and Recovery team to clear the extensive debris caused by the crash. This meant a total restart to the race with the original grid line up, a relief for Giddings who had managed to spin off at Graham Hill bend as the cars got collected by the safety car.
As the now eleven lap race began again, Morris wasn't able to repeat his start from before, having to slot in behind Giddings this time. Morris quickly came under pressure from William Foster behind, but managed to block him off, with Foster eventually losing a spot to Brad Bailey. Ahead though, the lead was quickly Morris', the 15 year old sliding past Giddings at Clearways on the opening lap
Morris soon began to build a small advantage at the front, while in the battle for third, Foster made a move to regain the spot at Clearways but ended up tapping Bailey into a spin, with the unfortunate Declan Jones collecting Bailey's car with a hefty blow, forcing both to retire, while Foster himself lost multiple places in the process.
Behind, second year racer Max Coates was enjoying an eventful race, a good start seeing him gain a couple of places, before a spin saw him drop to the back of the pack. Also sliding down was reigning Ginetta Junior Ireland champion Murray. A good opening few laps saw him work his way up to fifth from tenth on the grid, but a slide on liquid put down during Bailey's incident saw him lose three places.
At the front, Morris was driving into the distance and took the win by 3.3s over Giddings in a comfortable second. Tollbar's Tom Howard benefitted from Foster and Bailey's incident to take a podium in third, followed by George Gamble in a great fourth on his series debut. Charlie Robertson took fifth, as well as setting the race's fastest lap, with Foster recovering to sixth, while Murray managed to work his way up to seventh in the end. Kelvin Jones Motorsport's Patrick McClughan was next up, followed by Coates, Rollcentre Racing's Eric Morris and HHC's Mikey Day.
