Seb Priaulx produced a superb battling performance to recover from a slow start and emerge from a frenetic second Ginetta Junior Championship race at Knockhill with his maiden victory.
Priaulx initially started the twelve lap encounter from third on the grid behind Seb Perez and Stuart Middleton, but a sluggish getaway saw him get swamped by the pack heading into Seat Curve.
As Priaulx emerged in seventh, it was Daniel Harper who slotted into third, and that quickly became second as he stormed past his Douglas Motorsport team-mate Middleton out of Clark.
Middleton hit back at the hairpin on the next lap though with a clever move around the outside, which also got him the race lead before Perez fended him off down the start-finish straight.
The top two’s race would take a turn for the worse however as they were both handed a drive through penalty for a jump start – though that didn’t stop them battling on track.
Contact between the two coming out of Clark on lap four sent Middleton bouncing across the grass, with Perez maintaining the lead before serving his penalty first.
That promoted Harper into the lead ahead of Will Tregurtha, Priaulx and Middleton – Cameron Roberts having been in the battle before being spun around at Clark on lap six.
After Middleton served his penalty, Geri Nicosia climbed into fourth position ahead of Dave Wooder and Tom Wood, and those three would go on to gain some more ground in the closing laps.
That came as a slight mistake for Harper coming out of the chicane cost him his one second lead and meant the top three headed into the final two laps nose-to-tail.
The first to make a move was Tregurtha into the first corner, however contact with Harper opened the door for Priaulx to storm past both into the race lead, with Harper down to third.
On the final lap Harper tried to get a position back from Tregurtha, but more contact between the two at Scotsman ended with the latter being spun down the order.
Having no such problems at the front was Priaulx who secured his maiden victory at the head of a JHR Developments one-two, with Nicosia coming through for his first Junior podium.
Harper recovered to third at the flag ahead of Wooder and Wood, the latter taking his best result of his maiden Junior campaign so far with Elite Motorsport.
Tregurtha finished up sixth at the flag ahead of Connor Grady, Lewis Brown and Jordan Collard, the latter’s best finish of the season, with Perez and Middleton fighting back to complete the top eleven.
Olli Caldwell was twelfth after surviving a wild slide at Scotsman on the opening lap, an incident that led to damage for Enzo Fittipaldi and Harry King, plus a trip to the gravel for Charlie Digby.
Full race results can be found here.
