Evans wins amid safety car confusion
A well-timed pitstop and safety car confusion allowed Jonathan Evans to win the combined Bernie’s V8S/CALM Porsche Trophy 40-minute contest at Brands Hatch.
Evans started his Porsche Cayman S fifth and initially ran at the back of a leading quintet, headed by the TVR Tuscans of poleman Matt Holben, Christian Douglas and Jason Clegg, with the Talbot Sunbeam Lotus of Martyn/matthew Ellis also in the mix.
Holben soon dropped to third as Evans began losing touch with the leading machines, but he was handed a lifeline when a safety car was called to retrieve a stricken Porsche 968 from the Paddock Hill Bend gravel as the pit window opened. Inexplicably, the leading four cars failed to make their mandatory pitstops at the first opportunity, allowing Evans to take a net lead once the stops had shaken out.
Adam Southgate’s Porsche Boxster
986 S moved into second, from Christopher Ridge (Tuscan) and James Coleman (Cayman), with Douglas the highest-placed runner from the initial leading group in fifth. But Douglas then had a heavy front-end crash on the Grand Prix loop at the restart in an incident that also forced Ridge and Clegg out.
Confusion then reigned as the safety car picked up Hugh Peart’s #136 Porsche 924, not the #36 of Evans. With Andrew Knight’s Pontiac ASCAR also effectively acting as a second safety car, the front trio were given a half-lap lead as the race resumed for one final tour.
The officials’ mistake still wasn’t rectified as Peart, running in 30th, was shown the chequered flag first, but it was Evans who took the win from Southgate. Coleman finished third, despite a 30-second penalty for a short pitstop that was negated by the safety car confusion. Holben took fourth and was the top Bernie’s V8 runner despite a spin at Druids.
Darren Goes came out on top of the
MSV Supercup race, after a late red flag prevented early leaders Nick Jackson/ollie Pidgley from overturning his deficit. Jackson’s SEAT Supercopa led as Goes charged through from 13th in his SEAT, having crashed in a wet qualifying, and was up to second by lap eight. He was into the lead three tours later, after Jackson took to the grass at Dingle Dell lapping a backmarker before handing over to Pidgley.
The former British Touring Car Championship driver whittled the lead gap down to five seconds with six minutes remaining, but the race came to a premature end after a heavy accident for SEAT Leon Cupra R driver Barrie Culley at Clearways. Scott and Ryan Parkin’s VW Golf completed the podium and was Class A winner.
An off at Paddock Bend in a wet qualifying session put Radical Challenge championship leader Jerome de Sadeleer on the back foot. The Swiss started race one seventh and, after climbing to fourth, retired on lap three with a damaged rear wing mount while main title rival Matt Bell took victory in slippery conditions. Bell doubled up in the drier second sprint race, again from Anthony Ayres, while de Sadeleer finished third after overtaking Jason Rish over on the final lap.
De Sadeleer led the 45-minute contest from pole under constant pressure from
Bell. Because the pair had to serve success penalties at their mandatory pitstops, the lead and victory was handed to front-row starter Mark Richards. De Sadeleer recovered to second, with Rish over managing to hold onto third from Bell.
Simon Hill and Martyn Walsh shared the Production GTI wins after two close races. Hill won the opener from fourth on the grid with a well-timed pass on Walsh into Surtees. Walsh then grabbed the race two win on the final lap, having tracked Hill all race. Chris Murphy took both concurrent Z Cars/new Production BMW wins.
Nigel Innes’s lightning start from sixth on the grid in his BMW E36 M3 allowed him to win the first Racing Saloons and Production BMW/GOLF race. He remained unchallenged from the race two rolling start.
Dan Gore in his Mittell-run Jedi was the class of the Monoposto field, surging through from sixth in the opener and winning race two from pole. Chris Davison and James Drew-williams each took F3 honours.