James Taylor made a perfect start to the 2019 Ginetta Junior season as he drove a faultless race, leading from pole position and commanding the field, to take the win at Brands Hatch.
The race got off to a rocky start for the pack as on the opening lap the safety car was deployed due to three spins within seconds of one another.
Ethan Hawkey and Roman Bilinski spun off together on the run out of Paddock Hill, and unfortunately couldn’t continue the race, leading to the safety car period for the clear up.
The third spin was Bailey Voisin, who managed to recover and get back in the race, albeit in a much lower position of twenty-first.
Ethan brooks would be the next retirement, after starting in seventeenth place he managed only one lap before spinning off of the track coming out off Clearways and into Clark Curves.
After six laps the safety car returned to the pits and the rivalry for a podium finish resumed. With Taylor comfortably in first, second and third were up for grabs between Lorcan Hanafin, Gus Burton, and Rookie Zak O’Sullivan.
Burton was quickly overtaken by O’Sullivan to take third, but a spin at Druids with two minutes to go saw Hanafin drop all the way down to ninth allowing Burton to move up to third.
Burton however, would lose two places as James Hedley and rookie Theo Edergton joined the fight for a podium position alongside O’Sullivan.
O’Sullivan hung on for second place overall, picking up the rookie class win along the way. Hedley managed to recover to third place after slipping down to tenth place in the early part of the race.
The best lap time was also set by Hedley on the last lap with a time of 1:04.979. The rookie class podium finishers were Zak O’Sullivan in first followed by Theo Edgerton and Casper Stevenson.
All of the rookie podium finishers ended the race in the top seven of the overall results as they put in an impressive performance against the season regulars.
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