Will Tregurtha secured the Ginetta Junior championship at Silverstone, now seventy nine points ahead of rival Stuart Middleton in the championship.
The Silverstone round wasn’t spectacular for Tregurtha. The HHC Motorsport driver took a fifth, fourth, and a second in the penultimate round of the championship, but another poor round for Middleton meant Tregurtha took forty five points more than his rival from the round.
Race One
Sebastian Priaulx started the first race of the weekend from pole, with Dave Wooder alongside him. Tregurtha’s fourth place wasn’t quite where he wanted to be, but it was better than the ninth Middleton managed.
As always with the Ginetta Junior series, the teenagers brought a race to the fans that had everybody on the edge of their seat until the very last corner.
Straight off of the line, Priaulx was challenged by Wooder, the TCR driver taking the inside line going into the first corner.
Wooder snatched the lead of the race whilst Tregurtha, who’d moved past Sebastian Perez into third, challenged Priaulx. The pole sitter managed to keep Tregurtha at bay though and took the challenge back to Wooder, running right under the TCR’s rear wing.
Priaulx couldn’t find a way past though, which allowed Tregurtha to catch up and come alongside him. The pole sitter couldn’t keep Tregurtha at bay again and slipped down to fourth as Lewis Brown followed Tregurtha into third.
The battle for second grew throughout the race, Charlie Fagg joining the back of the trio and trying to find a way past. The four drivers swapped and changed places lap after lap, allowing Wooder in first to start to build a gap to the battle.
It was when Priaulx retook second that he was able to drag the battle up the road to Wooder. In the closing stages of the race, the JHR Developments driver was putting pressure on Wooder, running nose to tail with the leader and turning the battle for second into the battle for first.
Wooder was able to keep Priaulx behind him though, the pair crossing the line only a tenth of a second apart. Fagg joined them on the podium whilst Tregurtha would have to settle for fifth.
Meanwhile, it had been another anonymous race for Middleton, who finished outside the top ten in eleventh.
Race Two
With the results from race one determining the grid for race two, it looked like the battle at the sharp end of the field would continue in the second race of the day.
Straight off of the line, Priaulx met that expectation, coming alongside Wooder almost immediately and moving into the lead of the race. It wouldn’t last long, with the JHR Developments driver running wide and allowing Lewis Brown into the lead whilst Priaulx battled against Tregurtha.
Harry King, who had been running on the outside of the battle in the first race, became a key played in race two. Starting sixth, a lightning start for the Elite Motorsport driver promoted him to third. That third became a fourth when Wooder took the final step of the podium back.
Priaulx, Wooder, Tregurtha, King, Brown, and Perez all battled at the front of the field. It seemed like every corner saw a new leader, as one driver would run wide and two more were running side by side as they tried to get past.
All the driver managed to keep that up throughout the race, but it was Priaulx, Wooder, King and Tregurtha together coming into the final corner of the race. Brown had been taken out of the battle after contact with Wooder sent him into a spin and he finished towards the back of the field, whilst Perez fell back behind Fagg and Kyle Hornby.
Going into the final corner, it was four drivers almost side by side, Priaulx at the back of the pack. Wooder and King both ran wide as they tried to take the win, but Wooder managed to keep the lead. Priaulx came alongside the TCR driver, making it a drag race to the flag.
This time, it would be Priaulx crossing the line first, a whole tenth of a second ahead of Wooder. King would join them on the podium, whilst Tregurtha would finish one place higher than he started in fourth.
Like race one, race two would be a race that Middleton would have rather forgotten. Whilst his rival moved forwards through the race, Middleton moved backwards and finished eighteenth, the penultimate finisher.
Race Three
Charlie Fagg would take pole for the final race of the weekend, with Tregurtha alongside him. The championship leader stormed into the lead of the race off of the line, whilst Fagg lost out to Wooder and Priaulx.
The two race winners battled side by side but it was eventually Wooder who came out on trop and brought he challenge to Tregurtha, storming into the lead of the race. Tregurtha stuck to Wooder’s tail but didn’t put up much of a battle, allowing the pair to brake away from the rest of the pack.
Meanwhile, Fagg had managed to get back up to third but a spin for the pole sitter send him back into fourth and into the clutches of Priaulx, King promoted to the podium position. A wide line from Priaulx allowed Fagg to keep fourth place and challenge King.
The battle for third was the main one through the race, with King, Fagg, and Priaulx running side by side and almost making contact on a number of occasions.
When the safety car came out to neutralise the race, it was still King on top, with Fagg and Priaulx behind him.
Elsewhere, Middleton had been storming up through the field, making up for a dismal Saturday. After starting on the penultimate row of the grid, the championship contender had made his way up into eighth, and was now right on the tail of team mate Harper.
As the safety car returned into the pits, Wooder slowed the pack right up, perhaps a little too much, before launching away when they crossed the line.
Tregurtha was able to stay with the leader whilst King did his best to bring a challenge to them in the closing stages of the race, but couldn’t get close enough to the leaders.
Middleton was continuing his climb up through the field, passing Harper and Hornby and pushing hard against Priaulx. The Douglas Motorsport driver crossed the line in fifth, but it wasn’t enough to keep his hopes for the championship alive, Tregurtha’s second place consolidating his title victory.
Image Credit: Caroline Rhea
