It was a dry but cloudy weekend for the Ginetta Juniors at the UK’s fastest circuit, Thruxton.
The grid was a driver down, with Ethan Brooks not attending and qualifying saw the Championship leader James Hedley take pole in qualifying followed by rookie Zak O’Sullivan and Will Martin.
The youngsters were pushing hard, but being cautious so there were no safety car periods. Thirteen of the drivers had at least one lap time disallowed due to exceeding track limits; this included the front three runners all the way down to Haytham Qarajouli in twentieth.
The first row of the grid for race one was Hedley and top rookie O’Sullivan. Then row two was completed by Martin and Gus Burton. Casper Stevenson and Roman Bilinski both received a five position grid penalty. This resulted in Stevenson dropping from ninth to fourteenth on the grid. Bilinski moved from a good position of sixth to eleventh.
The juniors produced a clean race without the need for a safety car car during the twelve lap race.
Ethan Hawkey made a good get away from sixth and led for two laps at the start. However Will Martin quickly showed his ability and took over pole and led for the rest of the race.
Martin was off and no one could catch him. When the checkered flag was waved Martin had created a 6.398 second lead, securing his first Ginetta Junior Victory.
In2Racings, Zak O’Sullivan finished second overall and top on of the rookie podium. Ethan Hawkey got his first podium of third.
The rookie podium was completed by Josh Rattican who finished eighth overall and Stevenson. Current Championship leader Hedley finished in fourth and set the fastest lap of 1.32:180s. Freddie Tomlinson was the only one not to cross the line falling two laps short.
Race Classification
[table id=3872 /]
