Daniel Harper says he is “happy with the progress we’ve made” after he capped off the first half of his maiden Ginetta Junior Championship campaign with a pair of outright podium finishes at Croft.
The reigning Ginetta Junior Scholarship winner was in supreme form in North Yorkshire as he bounced back in style from a nightmare outing at Oulton Park two weeks previous.
Despite seeing top two free practice pace go unrewarded in qualifying due to traffic, the Northern Irishman was able to quickly put his Douglas Motorsport G40 into podium contention.
Harper rose from seventh on the grid to third through the opening sequence of corners in race one, and would hold the position for the remainder of the race for his fourth outright podium to date.
That would become five later that afternoon however, as another fast start saw Harper grab second position behind team-mate Stuart Middleton, with those two going on to take a one-two finish for the Douglas squad.
Harper looked set to make it three in three after another rocket start on Sunday, but contact on the rear going through the first corner sent him spinning back to sixteenth.
An expert recovery drive however eventually netted him ninth overall and second in the Rookie Cup, making it a hat-trick of class podiums that have extended his lead in the standings to 42 points.
“We had the pace in qualifying, but luck wasn’t in our favour with a car spinning in front of me on my fastest lap, though seventh was still a position we could fight from,” said Harper.
“I was able to benefit from an incident at the start of race one and get into the podium positions which was fantastic, and then it was even better in race two as I grabbed second at the start.
“It didn’t go our way in race three after being hit at the first corner, but fortunately I was able to get back on track and fight back onto the Rookie podium from there which I’m delighted about.
“It’s been a rollercoaster first half of the season, but we’ve had some fantastic results and I’m happy with the progress we’ve made.”
