HEDLEYSHINESTHROUGH INHECTICWINTERSERIES
Two wins at Brands Hatch were enough to give James Hedley the 2018 Ginetta Junior Winter Series title, but thoughts of such success were a long way from his mind last Saturday evening.
A heavy crash in the eventually cancelled second race put the Elite Motorsport driver on the back foot as red flags and big accidents were the theme for much of the weekend, with seven stoppages occurring across the two qualifying sessions and four races.
Having finished fifth in the Ginetta Junior standings this season and competing in his third winter series, Ruben Del Sarte was the favourite on paper, but it was Douglas Motorsport drivers Gus Burton and Lorcan Hanafin who were initially the ones to beat after locking out the front-row for race one.
In typical Ginetta Junior fashion, the racing was frenetic and the safety car was called after only three laps to recover two stricken cars on the entry to Clearways.
On the restart, leader Burton found a wet patch on a damp-but-drying track in the middle of Clark Curve and skated through the gravel before Del Sarte lunged up the inside of Tom Emson at Paddock Hill to move from third to first in the space of a few hundred metres.
While Burton rejoined from his excursion, team-mate Hanafin wasn’t so lucky the following lap and, when he was joined in the Clark Curve gravel by Theo Edgerton a tour later, the officials stopped the race with Del Sarte winning from Emson and Harry Dyson.
“At the safety car [restart] I was third and I knew there was going to be a battle for first and I’m lucky that [the front two running wide] happened so early on as on a damp track it’s quite difficult to overtake someone,” said Del Sarte.
Hedley had managed to gain third but was demoted to fourth courtesy of a lap countback and all hopes for a tilt at the title seemed gone when he lost control heading into Paddock Hill on the second lap in race two, colliding with the outside wall before rebounding and being clipped by team-mate Casper Stevenson.
The race was restarted and Burton again made the best start from pole but, coming into Graham Hill Bend on lap two, he spun on dropped fluid. Facing the wrong way and on the racing line he was collected head-on by Elite Motorsport’s Joel Pearson.
With light fading and a lengthy clear-up needed the second race was declared null and void.
“The worst day [for us] I have ever seen in five years we have been competing,” was how Elite Motorsport team boss Eddie Ives described it, as his mechanics worked until the early hours of Sunday morning fixing three badly damaged cars.
But Hedley repaid their hard work with pole for both remaining races and a realistic chance at the title.
On the opening lap in race three, Dyson went heavily into the tyre barrier after being pushed wide at Druids and, as a subsequent safety car was deployed on the start/finish straight, Pearson and Ben O’hare collided bringing another stoppage.
At the restart front-row starter Burton again beat Hedley off the line and drove defensively throughout but on the drag to the chequered flag, Hedley managed to reach the line first by just 0.133s having rehearsed the manoeuvre the previous lap.
Del Sarte climbed to third, once again hampered by a poor qualifying which left him sixth for both of Sunday’s races, but he still led the standings by four points from Hedley heading into the final race.
Any slim chance for Burton to win the title disappeared just before the lights went out as he jumped the start from the front-row.
Informed by his team of Burton’s 10-second penalty, Hedley followed for a while and when he had a sufficient gap to the bunch behind he lunged up the inside into Druids five laps from home to clinch the win and the title.
“I wanted to win it on the track to show that I could to it,” claimed Hedley.
Del Sarte was promoted to second and claimed the series runner-up spot, two points behind Hedley, with Elite’s Emson third overall as Total Control Racing’s Daniel Gale claimed the Rookie title.