Autosport – 18 April 2019

CLUB AUTOSPORT NATIONAL REPORTS

72 AUTOSPORT.COM 18 APRIL 2019

Deegan leads Smith.

They shared wins in

Mini Miglia thrillers

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It was then Dan Gibson in his

McLaren 650S who took the fight to

the Porsche in the final race. The two

battled for the lead early on, with Gibson

prevailing in a thrilling wheel-to-wheel

exchange as a cutback through Redgate

allowed him to complete the pass

descending the Craner Curves. Gibson

would be denied victory, however, by

John Seale and Jamie Stanley in their

Lamborghini Huracan. Seale’s pace before

the pitstop meant that Pro driver Stanley

only had a 20s margin to catch and pass

Gibson in the final 25 minutes. Stanley

delivered blistering laps to take the lead

with eight minutes to spare.

For the first time in the series’ history,

Champion of Brands played away from

home as Donington staged the first round

of 2019. In a 1-2 for Medina cars, Rory

Smith held off Oliver White – who had

won both of Saturday’s Heritage Formula

Ford races in his older Van Diemen RF89 –

to claim race-one victory.

Smith led throughout race two,

building a four-second lead before

Car woes no barrier to McIntyre’s Saxo success

Chamberlain’s

unique Porsche

back on song

CROFT

BARC

13-14 APRIL

Scott McIntyre won both Junior

Saloon Car races at Croft from pole to

seize the championship lead, despite

race-one gearbox problems that meant

he had to swap units between races.

McIntyre had a couple of strokes

of good fortune: in race one he

dropped to eighth place after

struggling to get third gear after the

start, but was able to resume his pole

position after an early red flag.

Also, the man he replaced at the top

of the points table, Lewis Saunders,

qualified far down the grid for both

races after suffering understeer caused

by the wrong length of part being fitted

after his drive flange broke. He recovered

to take third and second-place finishes.

“It’s going to be very close throughout

the year,” McIntyre promised, “but I look

forward to the racing because I do trust

him [Saunders] as a driver.

“We had about an hour window to

change the gearbox. It’s the first time

we’ve had the gearbox out of this car;

Alex Solley actually lent me a gearbox

for this race. It normally takes 45

minutes [to change it], it took us 30.

“It was good luck that we had a restart

[in race one], because I had a really bad start

due to the gearbox and probably myself.”

Both Mini Miglia races featured thrilling

battles between Lee Deegan and reigning

champion Aaron Smith, the pair taking a

victory apiece. Deegan won the first after

dropping to eighth place early on when

he ran wide under braking.

Smith took the race-two win after

outdragging Deegan early on the final lap

to take the lead, then pipping him to the

line as they finished almost side-by-side.

“That was so close!” Smith exclaimed.

“Each driver gave the other just enough

room and it made for awesome racing.”

Deegan added: “There was literally an

inch or two between us through

Sunny In and Sunny Out.”

Joe Thompson just held off a recovering

Jeff Smith to win the opening Mini Se7en

contest. Smith had had to change his

engine the day before, then found that

his new unit had electrical problems and

he had to sit out qualifying, meaning he

started the race from the back. Smith

and Thompson swapped places late

on, each driver in turn taking advantage

DONINGTON PARK

MSVR

13-14 APRIL

Richard Chamberlain’s hat-trick of victories

in the opening GT Cup weekend of the

2019 season was nearly two years in the

making.His distinctive orange Porsche 935

was “absolutely destroyed” in a fire at

Silverstone in 2017, triggering a repair

job that took 20 months and was only

completed three weeks before the

Donington Park curtain-raiser.

Two wins from pole on Saturday hinted

at a possible clean sweep, but Chamberlain

faced renewed threats on Sunday.

Last year’s GTO champion Gareth

Downing was anonymous on the opening

day after a three-car squeeze at Schwantz

Curve in practice resulted in a broken

steering column on his Mosler. But a

close qualifying tussle on Sunday morning

ended with Chamberlain delivering a

1m04.569s benchmark to narrowly

beat Downing’s time by 0.029s.

The sprint race promised a titanic battle

for victory between the two, but this was

prematurely cut short when the Mosler

developed a water-temperature issue,

allowing Chamberlain to cruise to victory.