Carl Breeze took his second win of the 2013 Michelin Ginetta GT Supercup season with a lights to flag victory in Round Four at Donington Park.
In the bright Leicestershire sunshine, the reigning champion led away from pole position, quickly establishing a one second lead over the field behind.
In chief pursuit was Tom Ingram, the KX Akademy star slowly creeping closer to the leader as the race developed, before finding himself right on Breeze’s rear bumper when the safety car came out at the end of lap eight.
The cause of the safety car was a dramatic retirement for Andrew Watson. The Irishman was running fourth when his G55 caught fire heading down the Craner Curves, with the flames quickly extinguished by the nearby marshals.
Breeze dealt with the restart well, but found himself under immense pressure from Ingram over the final three-lap sprint to the flag. The opportunity never came for Ingram to make a pass though, with Breeze holding on to take victory, second place proving enough to move Ingram into the championship lead.
Running third throughout to secure his first Supercup podium was Ingram’s JHR Developments team-mate Rob Boston, the KX Akademy member finishing up 2.6s ahead of Pepe Massot, the Spaniard benefitting from Watson’s retirement to take fourth.
Matt Nicoll-Jones, championship leader heading into the weekend, had an eventful race after having to start twelfth following a five place grid penalty, given to him after a misdemeanour at Brands. The Academy Motorsport star was a man on a mission, getting up to eighth on the opening lap, before working his way up to fifth before the safety car.
He went onto challenge Massot for fourth on the final lap, but the move ended up costing him a place, with Mark Davies nipping through to take fifth. Carl Boardley impressed with strong drive to seventh, while James Birch held off more experienced rivals Jamie Orton and Fergus Walkinshaw to take eighth.
Marcus Hoggarth was the last of the G55’s in eleventh, with G50 class winner Sean Huyton next up. Ginetta works driver Mike Simpson had led the class up until the safety car on a guest appearance in the series, but Huyton found his way through three laps from the end to take his second class win of the season. Simpson took second ahead of Dan Norris-Jones.
Full race results can be found here: http://tsl-timing.com/toca/2013/131603g50.pdf
