Daniel Harper has expressed his surprise but delight at his current run of form in the Porsche Carrera Cup GB, after a perfect day at Silverstone saw him convert pole position into a race win to kick off the sixth meeting of the season in style.
It’s the latest in a fantastic run of results for the 2018/19 Porsche GB Junior driver, who has now won at least one race in six consecutive weekends, equalling the feats of Tim Harvey in 2010 and Dan Cammish in 2015.
Harper has now accrued five pole positions and seven race wins across the campaign so far, with those results putting him 42 points clear at the top of the standings with five races remaining. The Northern Irishman admits he didn’t expect to achieve such success this year.
“It’s been an awesome run, I can’t really describe it. I couldn’t have imagined the season going the way it has so far,” Harper told The Checkered Flag shortly after celebrating his victory on the Silverstone podium.
“The car has been on point every weekend and I’ve been able to do a good enough job to be there at the front. It’s been far from easy, for every race I’ve been able to lead from the front, there’s been another in which I’ve had to battle through the field or tackle tricky weather conditions.”
Harper’s seventh victory was a relatively comfortable one for him. From pole, he launched himself into a near two second lead at the end of lap one and edged clear over the race as Josh Webster and Lewis Plato battled behind, securing himself a five second win.
“It was awesome,” he reflected. “I got a good start and a comfortable lead at the end of lap one. From there it was all about managing the tyres and not making any mistakes. The guys battling behind helped, but the credit goes to JTR. The car was faultless and didn’t fall off at any point.”
Harper has set the pace across the Silverstone weekend so far, topping both free practice sessions, qualifying and posting the fastest lap en-route to victory. He acknowledges that his outing in the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup last month in support of the British Grand Prix was beneficial heading into the meeting.
“My Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup debut was helpful for sure,” he concluded. “It meant we came here with good knowledge and experience on data and set-up to start the meeting with. It certainly hasn’t made it easy though, a number of the field had raced on the track before too, so we knew it would be a battle.”
The Silverstone weekend concludes tomorrow morning (Sunday 1 September) with race two taking place at 10:10. It can be watched live on the Porsche GB website by clicking here.
