Ginetta Junior

Oulton Double Gives Tregurtha The Junior Points Lead

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Will Tregurtha has become the first driver to take two victories on a race weekend in the Ginetta Junior Championship this season, with his Oulton Park double also handing him the championship lead for the first time.

Tregurtha led from lights-to-flag in a condensed second race of the weekend, with half of the laps being completed behind the safety car following a dramatic exit to the race for Daniel Harper, who’s Ginetta caught ablaze following an earlier incident.

After converting pole position in qualifying into victory in the opening race in Cheshire, Tregurtha was in confident mood heading into race two and it showed as he stormed off the line to lead the pack into Old Hall for the first time.

Beside him, Charlie Fagg produced a considerably slower getaway but still managed to maintain second place, whilst an early change of position behind saw Seb Perez slip past Stuart Middleton for third – though Middleton was back ahead by the end of lap two when Perez hit trouble.

The JHR Developments man tried a move around the outside of Fagg into the Island hairpin, but after looking like he’d made it stick, he turned across his rival as they exited the corner and spun himself around, with the rest of the field fortunately missing his stranded G40.

Fagg slipped to third behind Middleton in the melee, and that became fourth a lap later when Dave Wooder got alongside at the hairpin before making the move stick into the chicane, with that proving to be the last key overtake of the race.

That was due to the incident that dramatically ended Harper’s race, with the root cause coming as a spin for Kyle Hornby at the hairpin left him rolling across the track, and with nowhere to go, the Scholarship winner made contact.

Harper attempted to nurse his damaged G40 back to the pits, but unbeknownst to the driver the damaged bodywork had caught fire on the exhaust and it was only as smoke billowed into the cockpit that the Northern Irishman pulled off and hastily exited his car.

Quick work from the marshals limited the damage to the Douglas Motorsport machine, but with no easy recovery of the car from its resting place at Deer Leap, the rest of the race elapsed behind the safety car.

That handed Tregurtha a third victory of the season and a fifth consecutive podium finish, while second place for Middleton wasn’t enough for him to maintain his points advantage, with Tregurtha edging ahead by a single point.

Wooder joined them on the podium, the third time the trio had shared the rostrum, with Fagg narrowly missing out on adding to his maiden top three finish from the previous day. Lewis Brown and Geri Nicosia completed the top six, with Connor Grady a career best seventh.

Harry King led an Elite Motorsport one-two in the Rookie Class ahead of Tom Wood, with fellow rookie Tom Gamble rounding out the overall top ten ahead of Cameron Roberts, the recovering Perez and Jordan Collard, who had survived a wide moment at Druids.

Enzo Fittipaldi recovered from a spin at the same corner to take fifteenth behind Anthony Ayres, with Max Bird and Seb Priaulx completing the finishers after tough races – Bird spinning at Cascades, Priaulx having to take a pitstop after suffering early contact.

Full race results can be found here.

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Simon is an experienced journalist and PR officer, who has worked in the national motorsport paddocks for over a decade, primarily on the BTCC support package.
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