One week after his karting business with gutted by fire, Tom Wrigley secured an emotional maiden victory in the Michelin Ginetta GT4 Supercup during a hectic final race of the weekend at Snetterton.
In a car loaned to him by Ginetta for the weekend, after his was destroyed in the blaze, Wrigley converted the reverse grid pole position into a composed lights-to-flag victory for his first visit to the Supercup podium.
While Wrigley got a great launch off the line to lead into Riches for the first time, a sluggish getaway for fellow front-row starter Bradley Smith lost him ground to Michael Caine and Jamie Orton as the pack headed through Riches for the first time.
Plenty of shuffling in the pack as they headed through Montreal and then Agostini resulted in Will Burns and Carl Breeze, who had started eighth and seventh respectively, settling into third and fourth ahead of double race-winner earlier in the weekend Tom Oliphant.
Smith and Orton had dropped back outside the top six, and it would go from back to worse for Smith two laps later when a tussle with Ollie Jackson resulted in terminal damage for Jackson and a damaged car for Smith.
Ahead, Oliphant squeezed past Breeze for fourth and with clear air ahead of him, he set consecutive fastest laps as he closed down a 2.5 second gap to Burns in just three laps – with a three-way battle for second soon developing as Wrigley enjoyed a 1.5 second lead ahead.
Oliphant got ahead of Burns with a slick move into the Bomb Hole on lap seven and quickly started to put the pressure on Caine. Despite his best efforts he was unable to find a way past until a dramatic final lap.
Heading into Montreal for the last time, a dive down the inside of Oliphant by Burns resulted in contact with the rear of Caine, spinning him around. Oliphant on the outside line was just able to cutback through to take second, with Burns settling in third.
The podium finish was enough to secure Oliphant the championship lead for the first time in his Supercup career, while Burns saw his podium taken away post-race after being given a time penalty to drop him behind Caine in the results after their incident.
That promoted Breeze to third, a positive end to a tough weekend for the 2012 champion, while Reece Somerfield took fourth ahead of Orton. Flick Haigh ended her maiden Supercup weekend with a top six finish, with her Optimum Motorsport team-mate Ade Barwick taking the AM class honours in seventh.
Caine and Burns were classified eighth and ninth in the end, with Osamu Kawashima finishing second in the AM class ahead of Colin White and Will Moore – the latter having been demoted behind White post-race after making contact with him at Hamilton on lap two.
Fraser Robertson and Chris Ingram completed the finishers, with Smith having finished the race on the road, however post-race both he and Jackson were excluded for their early contact.
Full race results can be found here.
