The Simpson Race Products Ginetta Junior Championship headed into the business end of the 2016 campaign at Rockingham last weekend, and we’ve crunched the numbers to find the key statistics and landmarks from the meeting.
The weekend’s action kicked off with qualifying on Saturday, which Will Tregurtha topped for his third pole position of the campaign – which is now more than anyone else this season.
While Harry King and Connor Grady also matched their best ever qualifying performances in third and tenth respectively, only two drivers emerged from the session with new personal bests.
They were Charlie Digby in sixteenth and Greg Johnson in seventeenth, who then went on to post their best race results to date with fifteenth and fourteenth place finishes respectively.
After securing his maiden outright podium finish in the previous outing at Knockhill, Tom Wood would go one better at Rockingham with a seasons best second place overall finish.
That came as part of Elite Motorsport’s first ever one-two finish in the series, an incredible achievement in only their second ever Junior season
They are the third team to achieve that feat in 2016, joining Douglas Motorsport and HHC Motorsport who have each achieved a pair of one-two finishes so far this year.
The Elite one-two was headed by King. Whilst he was handed a maiden victory at Snetterton, it marked King’s first win “on-the-road” – as well as his first double Rookie class win.
It Was A Standout Weekend For King, Wood And Elite Motorsport – Credit; Jakob Ebrey Photography
King led that encounter from lights-to-flag, making him the ninth different driver to lead a race so far this campaign. By comparison, only seven drivers led laps through the 2015 campaign.
Before the weekend, Tregurtha had never previously posted a fastest lap in the championship, though that changed at Rockingham as he set all three across the weekend.
In Tregurtha’s title battle with Stuart Middleton it couldn’t be closer in the numbers. Both drivers have six wins and twelve podium finishes each, whilst remarkably have led 54 laps apiece so far.
The final race of the weekend however was the first one this season not to feature either Tregurtha or Middleton on the podium, the duo finishing fifth and tenth respectively.
Tregurtha had earlier shown his dominance in the second race, with his advantage of 6.533 seconds at the chequered flag being the biggest winning margin of the season so far.
Race three in Corby marked Lewis Brown’s landmark sixtieth start in the championship meanwhile, while Middleton and Geri Nicosia reaching forty in the same encounter.
Drivers enjoying their first starts meanwhile were Jenson Dineen and Connor O’Brien, making it 27 different drivers to have competed so far this season – though only 13 have contested every race meeting.
The 2016 Simpson Race Products Ginetta Junior Championship is back in action next weekend (17/18 September) with a triple-header meeting at Silverstone in Northamptonshire.
