JACKSON THRIVES FOR RADICAL CROWN
Dominik Jackson was crowned Radical Challenge champion after heavy rain caused the Silverstone finale to be abandoned after only one of the three races had run to completion.
Title rivals Jackson and Steve Burgess qualified first and second for Saturday’s first race, which began behind the safety car after a cloudburst doused the track. The action was green-flagged after one neutralised lap as the clouds parted, and as the duo disputed the lead a dry line began to form and Burgess’s rain tyres soon went off.
That left Jackson seven seconds clear of Jerome de Sadeleer at the pitstop window, with Burgess and Brian Caudwell contesting third.
Jackson opted to stay on wets, and that proved to be a mistake as the now slick-shod Burgess soon reeled him in to take a dominant victory.
De Sadeleer got second, while Caudwell took third on the road before a penalty for pitlane speeding dropped him to eighth. Kristian Jeffrey completed the podium, having beaten Jackson out of Woodcote on the last lap, but fourth place was enough for Jackson to take the title.
Paul Gibson’s Mclaren 650S and the Mosler MT900 of Gareth Downing took a win apiece in the GT Cup sprint races. Gibson led through
Copse on the opening lap of the first race and then went clear to win by 26 seconds.
Kevin Riley – sharing the polesitting Mosler with Downing – made contact with Bob Berridge’s Volvo S60 at the first turn. Paul Bailey (Ferrari 488 Challenge) took advantage of the confusion to claim second, only to be demoted by John Seale’s similar car on the fourth lap. Berridge passed Bailey for third three laps later before closing in on and passing Seale, but on the final lap he ran wide on the still-damp surface at Brooklands, enabling Seale to reclaim second.
The Lamborghini Huracans of Chris Yarwood and Tim Richards completed the top six behind fourth-placed Bailey, after Riley and Pantelis Christoforou (Ferrari 488 Challenge) outbraked each other at Brooklands two laps from home.
Although Gibson got away first in race two, Downing led from the second lap as darkness fell. Gibson retained second but had Berridge as a constant shadow. Behind the lead trio a fivecar battle for fourth raged for most of the race. Seale came out on top of the tussle from Richards, Christoforou, Yarwood and Bailey. A late surge from Christoforou netted him fourth with a lap to
go, but he then undid his hard work with a lock-up that dropped him to sixth.
Christian Olsen built a comfortable lead in the LMP3 Cup before handing his Ligier JSP3 over to Nick Adcock. Once Jack Butel had taken over from Dominic Paul behind the wheel of their Ligier, though, he began to close rapidly as Johnny Mowlem, Bradley Smith and Colin Noble also moved in. Smith’s Norma M30 overtook Mowlem and Butel on the same lap for second.
Smith continued to close down Adcock’s lead and made the decisive move at Village with a lap to go, and Mowlem and Noble followed him. Mowlem and co-driver Bonamy Grimes dropped to fourth with a track-limits penalty, and second place was enough to give Noble and Tony Wells the title.
Sunday morning’s Monoposto race was a washout. After two laps behind the safety car it went green, but track conditions proved untenable in the rain and it was red-flagged a lap later.
Alex Fores (Dallara F301) was declared the winner, from James Densley’s Tatuus Formula Renault and Richard Gittings (Jedi Mk6).