Richard Plant - Photo Credit: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Richard Plant endured a tough weekend during the Porsche Carrera Cup GB rounds at Brands Hatch, the 21 year old suffering an unfortunate puncture in the opening race, before bouncing back for a points scoring finish.
Plant headed into the weekend in positive mood having enjoyed a great weekend at the circuit in 2009, when he took three pole positions and three wins on his way to the Formula Palmer Audi title. His weekend started badly in qualifying though, when he was held up by a backmarker on his fastest laps, leaving him ninth and tenth on the grid for the two races.
The Multiplex-backed racer started well in the opening race though, shooting up to eighth at the start, before diving past two rivals at the same time around mid-distance to take sixth, before getting promoted to fifth when a rival went off. His race was to be ruined though when a puncture forced him to pit, Plant emerging to claim sixteenth at the finish.
Keen to make up for it in the second race, Plant soon got embroiled in a battle for eighth, which soon became a battle for sixth when two drivers pulled off with mechanical woes. Sitting in eighth, the GWPrice-backed driver starting suffering from a lack of grip towards the end of the race and rather than push too hard and risk another puncture, he settled for eighth and some valuable points.
Plant, who sits at the top Carrera Cup rookie in fifth in the championship, said: “It was just one of those weekends to forget I suppose. It was all looking quite good early on Friday but then things went against us in qualifying. I managed to put that out of my mind to produce one of my best drives in race one, only for the result to be taken away from us with a puncture. It can knock your confidence a little so I was keen to bring home some points on Sunday, which thankfully we did. It's all set up for an exciting final weekend at Silverstone.”
