Ginetta Junior

Floersch Becomes First Rookie Winner Of 2015

2 Mins read

Sophia Floersch secured her first victory in the Ginetta Junior Championship with a controlled drive in the opening race at Thruxton.

Floersch’s success makes her the first rookie to win a race this season, and the first victorious female driver in the Ginetta Juniors since Louise Richardson at the end of 2010.

Stuart Middleton started the race from pole position, however a lightning getaway from fellow front-row starter Floersch saw the German lead the field into the complex for the first time.

As Middleton held off Patrik Matthiesen for second, Dan Zelos swept around the outside of Dave Wooder for fourth into the complex, with Wooder losing further ground to Senna Proctor later in the lap.

Proctor would hit drama soon after though with a spin, and he wasn’t the only front-runner to hit trouble with Donington Park podium-finisher Lewis Brown spinning at the final chicane and being collected heavily by the unfortunate Seb Perez.

That incident brought out the safety car for a number of laps, leaving a three lap shootout to the flag at the restart, which Floersch led away from Middleton and Zelos – the latter having worked his way into second prior to the interval.

Floersch expertly led away from the restart to head the field into the closing stages of the race, the top three just being clear of some drama behind as Matthiesen and Wooder went synchronised spinning at the complex.

Zelos moved into second place with a ballsy move on Middleton at Church on the penultimate lap, setting him up for a last lap challenge on Floersch. Despite his best efforts into the final chicane though, she fended him off for victory.

For both, the result marked a first outright podium finish of the season and it was the same for Middleton, the reigning Ginetta Scholarship winner taking third. Jamie Caroline meanwhile avoided the carnage around him to rise from twelfth on the grid to fourth.

One of the incidents he missed was contact between Will Tregurtha and Cameron Roberts at the complex on the penultimate lap. Whilst Tregurtha could continue to finish sixth behind Billy Monger, Roberts fell back to an eventual eighteenth place finish.

Matt Chapman set the fastest lap of the race en-route to his first top ten finish of the season in seventh ahead of Jonathan Hadfield, while Matthiesen, Proctor and Wooder fought back from their dramas to take ninth, eleventh and sixteenth respectively.

Ben Green had finished in the top ten meanwhile, however his first top ten of the season was lost with a five second penalty for gaining an unfair advantage that dropped him to fourteenth – Kyle Hornby benefitting to round out the top ten.

Full race results can be found here.

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Simon is an experienced journalist and PR officer, who has worked in the national motorsport paddocks for over a decade, primarily on the BTCC support package.
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