After seeing Stuart Middleton dominate proceedings on the opening day at Croft to deprive him of the Ginetta Junior Championship points lead, Will Tregurtha hit back in perfect style with victory in the final reverse grid race of the weekend.
Tregurtha’s fourth win of the season so far, coupled with a dramatic first corner retirement for Middleton, means the latter’s advantage at the top has been reduced to just four points heading into the championship’s summer break.
The decisive moment of the race came as the field piled into Clervaux for the first time, with contact between Seb Priaulx and Middleton sending the latter spinning into the gravel trap, with the unfortunate Charlie Fagg, Kyle Hornby and Daniel Harper also caught up.
The fast-starting Harper had shot into second position behind poleman Lewis Brown, but a tag on the rear sent him spinning around, while Hornby joined Middleton in the gravel trap and Fagg eventually headed to the pitlane with front end damage.
Behind Brown, Tregurtha emerged from the chaos in second position ahead of Geri Nicosia and Dave Wooder, those two having stormed through from seventh and ninth on the grid respectively, whilst Seb Perez and Enzo Fittipaldi completed the early top six.
Nicosia’s efforts to take a maiden podium finish in the series were given a blow on lap five as Wooder got ahead going into the Complex, while two laps later it was the race lead changing hands as Tregurtha grabbed the advantage into Tower.
Tregurtha would maintain the lead for the final couple of laps en-route to victory, with Brown following him home to complete a HHC Motorsport one-two with his fourth podium finish of the campaign so far.
Wooder rounded out the podium, his sixth visit of the year, while Nicosia secured his best result in the championship so far with fourth. Some late changes behind saw Cameron Roberts climb to fifth ahead of Connor Grady, who took a maiden top six finish in the series.
Perez slipped to seventh in the end, while Fittipaldi picked up a maiden Rookie Cup victory in eighth ahead of his Douglas Motorsport team-mate Harper, who produced a superb recovery drive after his first lap troubles to battle through the order from sixteenth.
Tom Wood completed the Rookie podium in tenth ahead of Priaulx, Max Bird and Olli Caldwell, with Fagg nursed his bonnet-less G40 home in fourteenth. Alongside Middleton and Hornby, Jordan Collard and Tom Gamble also failed to reach the finish.
Full race results can be found here.
