Paul Rivett secured his first win of the 2015 Renault UK Clio Cup season during a close fought opening race of the weekend at Oulton Park.
A quick start for the Clio stalwart allowed him to leapfrog polesitter Ant Whorton-Eales off the line for a lead he wouldn’t relinquish.
It was by no means an easy win for the WDE Motorsport man though, with Whorton-Eales leading a train of cars in hot pursuit of the leader throughout.
Behind him, Jordan Stilp leapt into third off the start ahead of Ash Hand, who then lost further ground to Team Pyro stablemate Ashley Sutton at the first corner.
The two beneficiaries then made contact themselves at the chicane on lap two though, dropping Stilp down to fifth, with Sutton briefly holding third before Hand got back ahead on lap six.
A close fought four-way fight for the lead proceeded for the remainder of the race, though there were no changes of position until the final tour.
That came when Stilp had latched onto the back of the train, with a robust move from the 20Ten Racing man into the hairpin securing him fourth at Sutton’s expense.
He was unable to challenge for the podium positions though, with Rivett seeing a lead of over half a second at one stage narrowed to just 0.178s at the flag by Whorton-Eales and Hand.
Behind the top five, it was a Team Cooksport procession in the battle for the top six, with Charlie Ladell and his team-mates Jon Maybin and Rory Collingbourne running in close formation throughout.
Dan Holland climbed five places from his grid slot to take ninth ahead of Jack Mitchell, who lost ground after challenging Ladell for sixth in the early stages.
Brett Smith ended up eleventh, a disappointing result having started seventh, with George Jackson his closest competitor on his first outing since switching from JamSport Racing to Cooksport.
Rory Green and Tom Grundy were next up, whilst Graham Field took his first Masters Cup victory of the season after class leader Mark Howard suffered early contact.
Full race results can be found here.
