Dan Harper secured the final race win of the 2017 Ginetta Junior Championship at Brands Hatch, but it wasn’t quite enough for him to stop Sebastian Priaulx taking the vice-champions honours.
With the newly-crowned champion Tom Gamble electing to sit out the season finale, Harper had no-one alongside him on the front row of the grid as he took the start of Round 26.
That gave the Northern Irishman a clear run to Paddock Hill Bend for the first time, however the red flags were quickly introduced after a multi-car incident in the pack behind.
As Emily Linscott came across the circuit she made contact with Matt Luff, which triggered a big incident that also eliminated Luke Browning and Greg Johnson.
Harper would go on to lead the field away from the restart, however he would quickly have Priaulx hot on his heels as the duo battled early on for the race lead.
Their fight came to a head on lap four, when Priaulx drew alongside coming out of Westfield and made a challenge at Sheene, but he ended up running wide through the gravel trap.
As Priaulx dropped to sixth, Harper took full advantage to build a near two second lead at the front, which he maintained to the finish for his seventh victory of the campaign.
Priaulx meanwhile quickly got ahead of Louis Foster for fifth and then squabbled with Kiern Jewiss and Tom Wood, crucially emerging in fourth to beat Harper to second in the standings by two points.
Ahead of them, Harry King had broken away from the pack as he tried to hunt down Harper in the closing stages, eventually taking the flag in second for his ninth rostrum of the year.
As Wood completed the podium ahead of Priaulx and Jewiss, James Hedley fought through for a seasons best sixth place finish ahead of Ruben Del Sarte.
Foster slipped to eighth at the finish ahead of Jordan Collard and Tom Canning, with Finley Green, Charlie Digby and Linscott completing the finishers of the final race of the year.
Full race results can be found here: http://tsl-timing.com/event/173903/session/rc3gij
