Carl Breeze made a long-awaited return to the top step of the Michelin Ginetta GT4 Supercup podium with victory in the opening race of the weekend at Rockingham.
Breeze’s last victory came at Oulton Park back in June, and the key to his 26th career Supercup success was a trademark fast getaway off the line.
The HHC Motorsport man stormed past pole-sitter Tom Oliphant as they headed round the banking for the first time, with the 2012 champion quickly edging a second gap at the front.
Championship leader Oliphant didn’t let him break away though, but every time he edged closer to his title rival, Breeze would pull the gap back again.
In the closing stages Oliphant really started closer on the leader, but he was unable to create an overtaking opportunity before Breeze took the chequered flag for his fourth win of the season.
“It’s fair to say we’ve had a lot of issues with the car in recent meetings and I’ve lost a lot of points, so it’s great to be back on the top step of the podium,” Breeze told TCF.
“I thought we’d have a good chance after qualifying with our starts and so it proved. There wasn’t much pressure really until a backmarker didn’t make it easy for me to pass, but we held on. It’s great to stop Tom’s run of non-reverse grid wins and puts us up to second in the standings.”
Oliphant extended his run of consecutive podium finishes to twelve behind, while Will Burns made it four in a row himself with a lonely race in third, the HHC Motorsport man comfortably holding the position from start to finish.
With Jamie Orton (P4 on the grid) electing to miss race day and Michael Caine (P6) out through injury, Tom Wrigley, Bradley Smith and Ollie Jackson became the chief competition outside the podium positions.
In a race with limited overtaking, it was Jackson who was the main man on the move. A fantastic move around the outside of Smith at Tarzan on lap three gave him fifth, before he dispatched Wrigley at the final chicane on lap thirteen for a fifth top four finish of the campaign.
Wrigley and Smith completed the top six ahead of Reece Somerfield, with Connaire Finn taking the AM class victory ahead of Osamu Kawashima, with fellow class competitor Fraser Robertson being the only retirement of the race when a mechanical failure stopped his G55.
Full race results can be found here.
