Stuart Middleton produced a dominant victory in the opening round of the 2015 Ginetta Junior Winter Series at Snetterton, streaking clear to take his first car-racing win by over seventeen seconds in the Norfolk rain.
Lewis Brown started the fifteen minute encounter from pole position, but he slipped to fourth during an action-packed opening lap, with Billy Monger briefly leading before running wide and losing plenty of ground at Agostini.
Middleton emerged over five seconds clear at the end of the lap and as he pulled further clear, Brown battled with his new HHC Motorsport team-mates Will Tregurtha and Charlie Fagg behind, the former slipping from second to fourth on lap two.
Brown put Fagg under immense pressure over the next couple of laps for second, however on lap five contact between Brown and Tregurtha saw them fall down the pack to tenth and thirteenth respectively.
That promoted Connor Grady into third place, continuing a fantastic drive through from tenth on the grid, while lead rookie Harry King held fourth ahead of Sebastian Perez.
Middleton meanwhile was posting fastest lap after fastest lap ahead as he stretched his lead to incredible 17.596s at the end of the six lap race – his domination on the field shown by his best lap time being over two seconds faster than anyone else.
Fagg and Grady completed the podium, their first top three finishes in Ginetta competition, with King a superb fourth on his debut with Elite Motorsport.
Dave Wooder joined Monger in dropping down the order on the opening lap, with both ending up outside the top ten. They both fought back into the top seven, before late drama saw Monger fall back down to thirteenth again.
Wooder took fifth ahead of rookie Max Bird, with Brown recovering to seventh ahead of Alex Day and Perez, who dropped out of the top six late on.
Geri Nicosia completed the top ten ahead of Tregurtha, Rowan Bailey and Monger, while Seb Priaulx led fellow debutants James Roe Jnr and Jordan Dempsey in fourteenth.
Frank Bird and Anthony Ayres completed the finishers, with Charlie Digby the only retiree following problems on the opening lap.
Full race results can be found here.