Stuart Middleton topped the timesheets in the official Ginetta Junior Championship test at Croft today (8th June) ahead of next weekend’s race meeting at the Yorkshire circuit.
The test was planned to be a combined outing for the Juniors and the Ginetta GT5 Challenge, which will be making its second and final appearance this season on the BTCC support package.
Only one Challenge contender made an appearance however in the shape of Optimum Motorsport’s Ashley Marshall, meaning the focus was on the fifteen Junior drivers in attendance.
After losing the championship lead this past weekend at Oulton Park, Middleton hit back in style by topping both 210 minute sessions around the flowing 2.1 mile circuit.
Middleton’s best time of 1m 39.588s came in the morning session and put him four tenths of a second clear of his closest competitor, JHR Developments’ Cameron Roberts.
Incredibly, just sixteen thousandths of a second separated the next three drivers, Dave Wooder, Charlie Fagg and Oli Caldwell – the latter continuing to show impressive pace in testing as he prepares for a series debut soon.
Kyle Hornby, Tom Gamble, Tom Wood and Lewis Brown completed the top ten on the day, whilst Daniel Harper was close behind after an impressive turnaround by the Douglas team following his Oulton troubles.
The Ginetta Junior field will get one more opportunity to get acquainted with the Croft circuit ahead of the race weekend with the usual pre-event Friday test sessions.
Full testing times can be found here.
