Hillspeed Had A Busy Weekend At Donington Park - Photo Credit: Chris Gurton Photography
Reigning Ginetta Junior champions Hillspeed have spoken out to thank all of the Donington Park medical staff and everyone at Ginetta Cars following the latest rounds of the series at the Leicestershire circuit, while also commenting on George Gamble's decision to leave the series.
In the opening race at Donington, two of the Hathersage squad's cars, those driven by Gamble and his Spanish team-mate Pepe Massot, were involved in a multi-car incident at Coppice, with the resulting damage meaning both cars were written-off, whilst their third driver Nathan Harrison was involved in a separate incident in which has car was also badly damaged.
Commenting on the work of the medical teams and of Ginetta, Hillspeed Team Principal Richard Ollerenshaw said: “On behalf of everyone at Hillspeed, I'd like to thank all of the medical staff at Donington for taking such excellent care of George and Pepe following the accident in last Saturday's race. I also want to express the team's gratitude to everyone at Ginetta for the assistance with supplying spare parts and for making spare cars available and delivering them to the track overnight.
“Ultimately, that help enabled Pepe to take his first overall podium finish in Sunday's race which was a great reward for everyone's tireless efforts and Nathan was also able to score valuable points with his repaired car, taking fifth place.”
While Massot took to the grid again for the second race in a spare car provided by Ginetta, Gamble elected not to participate in the race due to a 20-point penalty deduction ruling for the use of spare cars and has since made the decision to withdraw from the series.
Ollerenshaw commented: “We fully understand George's decision and his reasons for choosing to withdraw from the championship. We're disappointed he won't be racing in Ginetta Junior from this point forward but we do support him and his family in the choice they've made.”
Gamble's main reason for leaving the series was that he disagreed with the parity of the judicial decisions taken at Donington Park, feeling that Niall Murray, who's contact with Gamble caused the main incident, should have been penalised more.
On the matter, Ollerenshaw added: “From a team perspective, we fully understand the decision reached by the Clerk of the Course with regard to the incident involving George and Niall Murray in the first race. The decision had to be reached regarding the initial contact, not the ensuing damage, so the penalty that was applied to Murray was the only course of action which could be taken.”
