Jonas Gelzinis won the first Porsche Carrera Cup GB race of the weekend at Snetterton after pole sitter Michael Meadows was given a drive through penalty for jumping the start which dropped him to the back of the field and allowed the Lithuanian a clear run to his second victory of the season.
A clutch issue for Meadows on the startline meant the defending champion moved away from the grid before the lights went out, allowing him to lead the pack into the first corner, Riches. Gelzinis, who had also started on the front row slotted into second with Celtic Speed’s Rory Butcher third.
Meadows’ blatant jump start gave the stewards an easy decision to make and they awarded the Samsung Smart Motorsport driver a drive through penalty which cost him approximately fifteen seconds and dropped him to the rear of the field.
The penalty promoted Gelzinis to the lead of the race but the majority of the action was taking place behind him as Dean Stoneman battled past Butcher to move into second place. Butcher was then immediately under pressure from Team Parker Racing’s Dan Lloyd and the pair ran nose to tail for many laps.
At the front Gelzinis controlled the pace of the race expertly and was able to keep Stoneman at arm’s length despite the Redline man showing good pace after initially getting ahead of Butcher. At the flag the pair were separated by 2.2 seconds.
Of his second win of the season, Gelzinis said: “That is an important result. I saw that Meadows was moving at the start and I was expecting he would be penalised. I always had a bit in hand and I was watching my mirrors and controlling the pace.”
Stoneman was pleased to finish second having started fifth on the grid. He said: “It’s good to be back on the podium and do the best job I can after a tough last round. I’m very pleased with that, but I was struggling a bit with understeer.”
Butcher was third, successfully shaking off the attention of Lloyd in the latter stages of the race and finishing within half a second of Stoneman. Lloyd was a lonely fourth.
Meadows battled back through the pack to finish fifth with team mate James Birch rounding out the top six.
In Pro-Am1 Victor Jiminez claimed a dominant victory while his main title rival Dan De Zille failed to make the start after a driveshaft failure. Keith Webster was second in class with George Brewster third.
Will Goff equalled his best finish of the season with ninth overall as the sole Pro-Am2 driver impressed by mixing it with the Pro-Am1 runners.
For the full race classification, see here.
