Morris Grabs His Eleventh Win In Race One At Rockingham
Round 15 of the Ginetta Junior Championship saw Hillspeed’s Seb Morris take his eleventh win of the season, after title rivals Charlie Robertson and George Gamble got into a spot of trouble out on the track.
As the race got underway, Robertson, who was sitting in pole position on the grid, didn’t get the best start he was hoping for, meaning Morris could position his Ginetta right where he wanted it, and take the lead as they headed into Turn One.
As they went into Deene for the first time, it was Beacon Racing’s Niall Murray who wanted in on the action. He saw an opportunity round the outside of Morris as they went into the corner, and made it stick, demoting the Hillspeed driver to second position.
While this was happening at the front of the field, the Rockingham crowd were peering through their hands, as Gamble in the TJ Motorsport Ginetta managed to work his way up from fifth to third on the track, and then there was disaster for front runner Robertson who had a coming together with Brad Bailey at Yentwood, putting them both right back down the pack. Due to the action, it meant that the three front runners (Murray, Morris, Gamble) could gain themselves a bit of breathing space from the rest of the pack.
As the drivers entered the next lap, Morris saw his opportunity to get back onto the tail of Murray, and take back his lead. As they went into Deene for the second time, where Murray had previously attack Morris for the lead, he repaid the favour, demoting Murray to second. Then it was Gamble who decided to attack the Beacon Racing G40, and succeeded at Yentwood, leaving Murray no choice but to settle for third position.
With Morris now leading, he was able to break away from the pack, and start giving himself a bit of breathing space between him and the others. However, Gamble had other ideas, and despite Morris’ efforts, Gamble stayed right on the bumper of the Hillspeed Ginetta.
On the seventh lap, as the cars entered into Deene, it was Gamble’s turn to make a pass at Morris and steal the lead. Murray also joined in on the action at Yentwood, but remained in third place. On lap eight, Morris tried to re-take his lead at exactly the same corner again, but Gamble had everything covered, and managed to stay ahead of the Hillspeed Ginetta.
As the race progressed, an unfortunate incident for Declan Jones left him out of the race, and the safety car was deployed to remove his stricken G40. When the race got back underway on lap 10, Morris wasn’t hanging around, and as soon as they entered into Deene, he took the inside line into the corner and stole the lead from Gamble. From this, Murray also saw his chances, and again got up the inside of the TJ Motorsport Ginetta and stole yet another place, demoting him to third.
From there, it then went downhill for Gamble, as Sennan Fielding found his way past at Chapman Curve. To make matters even worse as they entered into the final lap, Gamble was really pushing to make up places, when he went to go round the outside of Fielding into Deene, he ended up in the tyre barrier which unfortunately ended his race.
As the rest of the drivers finished the final lap, Morris crossed the line to take his 11th win of the season, followed by an elated Murray for Beacon Racing in second place. Third to cross the line was Fielding, his best performance and first podium of the season so far for the TJ Motorsport team.
Fourth was to be had by Max Coates, who had a fantastic race, making it his best finish in the second half of the season. Fifth went to Myles Collins, who again had a great race in the HHC Ginetta and rounding out the top six was Tollbar Racing’s Will Foster.
From the earlier incident with Bailey, Robertson managed to claw his way back up through the pack, but could only manage to cross the line in ninth place. However, on the upside for Robertson, he managed to take a well deserved bonus point for the fastest lap of the race, and setting a new circuit record of 1m36.890 seconds.
For full race classification click here.
Photo Credit: Jakob Ebrey
Becki Mitchell
