TIDE IS WITH TAYLOR IN GB4
Nikolas Taylor notched up his ninth GB4 win at Brands Hatch, but it was by no means plain sailing in his quest for the title after crashing out from the lead in the opening contest.
After building a one-second advantage, Taylor was caught out by a brief rain shower at Paddock Hill Bend, striking the barriers after sliding through the gravel and ending his race. His crash resulted in three thrilling laps to the chequered flag following a safety-car period to retrieve his Fortec machine, as Jarrod Waberski led Kevin Mills Racing team-mate Tom Mills.
The latter had to fight hard to keep Jack Sherwood behind at the restart, but the Elite Motorsport driver eventually got ahead into Paddock at the start of the penultimate lap before briefly snatching the lead from Waberski two corners later.
But a mistake exiting Surtees allowed Waberski back through, with Mills then pulling off a spectacular overtake on the pair of them around the outside of Hawthorns before he held on to claim a maiden series win ahead of Sherwood, who reclaimed second before the finish.
“We’ve worked hard for it, it’s been a long time coming,” said Mills. “There’s been a few times where we’ve been slightly out of luck or we’ve not had the car [to challenge]. It was so treacherous after the safety car because we lost all tyre temperature.” Despite a quiet race to fourth, Max Marzorati profited from Taylor’s retirement to move level on points at the top of the standings.
The championship then swung dramatically back in Taylor’s favour in races two and three on Sunday. As Marzorati was hampered by an issue, Taylor took a lights-to-flag victory from pole in the second encounter. Mills ended up off the road and out of contention with front wing damage after contact at Druids with team-mate Waberski, who subsequently pushed Taylor hard but had to settle for second ahead of Sherwood.
Chloe Grant scored her best result of the season in fourth, passing Jessica Edgar and the ailing Hillspeed car of Marzorati, who slipped back to seventh before recovering one place when Logan Hannah spun out at Dingle Dell. “It’s quite worrying,” said Marzorati of his struggles. “Something is fundamentally wrong and we haven’t found it. We haven’t been this far off the pace all season.”
Hannah stalled from third in the reversed-grid encounter, as her Graham Brunton Racing team-mate Grant led from Edgar. Sherwood climbed from fourth to take the lead on the opening lap with a move around the outside of Hawthorns, before building a comfortable gap by the time Mills and Taylor had also moved past Edgar and Grant.
Taylor took second from Mills in the closing stages to complete a solid recovery from eighth as Marzorati struggled again, trailing home sixth and heading into next month’s deciding round 31 points adrift of Taylor. “It’s never a comfortable lead in the championship,” said Taylor. “Hopefully we should do well at Donington.”