WILTSHIRE AND CAREY TRIUMPH IN CLOSELY-FOUGHT KENT CONTESTS
Stuart Wiltshire and Cian Carey shared the victory spoils in two hard-fought F3 Cup races.
At the start of race one it was side-byside through Paddock Hill Bend, before Wiltshire led out of Druids and defending champion Jacopo Sebastiani snatched second at Pilgrims Drop.
“Cian left half a door open for me and that was enough,” said Wiltshire.
Sebastiani closed in on the lead but couldn’t breach Wiltshire’s defence, while Carey had to fend off a determined Shane Kelly to retain third.
George Line and Tony Bishop duelled for fifth until Bishop fell off two laps from home.
Carey led race two from the start, but when Sebastiani spun exiting Paddock on the opening lap, he was collected by Kelly, putting them both out of the race and handing Wiltshire a clear second.
As Carey’s lead grew, Wiltshire came under pressure from Bishop for a while before all three held station.
“I backed off to save my tyres and then realised we didn’t have a third race this weekend,” said Bishop.
Former champion Steve Burgess was a treble winner in the Radical Challenge, after duelling throughout the weekend with his team-mate Dominik Jackson.
In race one, Jerome de Sadeleer joined them in an early break, before Burgess managed to escape and leave his rivals duelling for second. Jackson held on, despite being baulked at Stirlings on the last lap, however, de Sadeleer had nosed ahead on the outside into Clearways, only for a touch to leave him in the tyre wall.
Marcello Marateotto inherited a solitary third, with Kristian Jeffrey securing fourth after taking Brian Murphy into Surtees.
Jackson got his revenge on Burgess in race two, but a jump-start penalty robbed him of a lights-to-flag victory and dropped him to third behind Burgess and Marateotto.
Jeffrey was also penalised, but managed to retain fourth, over Murphy and Spencer Bourne.
Jackson led initially again in the third race but, after running wide at Dingle Dell, Burgess led out of Stirlings before the stops, going on to dominate the second half of the contest.
Brian Caudwell ran strongly after the stops, retaining second from Richard Baxter and Jeffrey. Baxter was then penalised, handing third to Jeffrey with Jackson finally settling in fourth.
Ollie Wilkinson’s Audi R8 GT3 cruised to three dominant wins in the GT Cup. Nigel Hudson’s Aston Martin GT3 and Chris Froggatt’s Ferrari 488 Challenge had an early duel for second in race one, before it was settled in Hudson’s favour, leaving Paul Gibson’s Mclaren 650S to fight for third.
Gibson was through into Druids on lap 12 and closing on Hudson, but he was caught out by a backmarker, crashing out exiting Surtees and bringing out the red flags.
Froggatt therefore reclaimed third place, ahead of John Dhillon’s Ferrari, Paul Cripps’ Aston Martin and Paul Bailey’s Ferrari.
While Wilkinson romped clear from the start of race two, Hudson quickly settled into second after an initial skirmish with John Sawbridge’s Ferrari. All three held station, with Dhillon just holding off Mike Brown’s Aston Martin for fourth.
Wilkinson secured his hat-trick with Bradley Ellis sharing the Audi in the second half of race three, while Hudson/adam Wilcox and Froggatt/ Sawbridge completed the podium in a fairly predictable race.
Both Racing Saloons outings were led from start to finish by Nigel Innes’ BMW E36 M3. The similar cars of Stephen Pearson, Darren Stamp and Karl Cattliff followed in a red flagshortened race one, having settled on the opening lap.
It was a four-car break again in race two, but while Innes and Pearson started to escape, Cattliff and Stamp shared a couple of exchanges before Cattliff took charge again exiting Graham Hill bend on the sixth lap. Oliver Davies’ Toyota Starlet was the first non-bmw, taking fifth place on both outings.
Alex Ball had led the Lotus Cup UK & Elise Trophy from the start, breaking clear with Craig Denman and Joe Taylor. But Ball got sideways at Surtees on lap 12 and Denman made the decisive move, leaving Ball fighting off Taylor’s challenge – until contact a lap later sent Taylor spinning and promoted John Lamaster up to third position.
Taylor led race two from the opening lap, with Denman and Ball completing the podium places in the closing laps.
David Graves came out on top of a race-long duel with David Strong to win the first Production BMW race, but with Graves out at the first corner, Strong took the race two spoils by 0.078s after a third lap exchange with Will Davison.
Colin Noble Jr/tony Wells won both LMP3 Cup races, which reached an alltime low. Four starters in the first race was reduced to three for race two, when Dominic Paul crashed the Ligier he shares with Jack Butel in qualifying.