ALL’s WELL THAT ENDS WELL AT SILVERSTONE

Jack Sales won the Roadsport title on the count-back procedure. Photo: www.snappy-racers.com

The curtain come down on the ‘regular’ season at Silverstone late last Sunday afternoon with the Formula Jedi, Alfa Romeo, Euro Saloons, XR and all six Caterham championships coming to a conclusion.

Mike Hart finally has the silverware to prove what has been known for a while – that he is one of the quickest Caterham drivers around. Two wins for the Leicester driver were enough to dislodge pre meeting favourite Jon Mortimer from the top of the points table. James Robinson and Matt Dyer filled the remaining podium positions. Mortimer fared better in the second race taking P2, ahead of Danny Killeen, but he was pipped to second spot in the final points table by James Robinson.

A magnificent turn-out of Alfa Romeos produced wins for Ian Stapleton’s Alfetta GTV6 and Anthony George’s 156 Turbo. Stapleton had a comfortable win coming home forty-six seconds ahead of Graham Seager and Darelle Wilson. George’s triumph was somewhat closer with just a three second gap to Stapleton in second, with Seager dropping to third. 2014 champion James Bishop rounded off his season in Class E in splendid style with two more wins, while Tom Hill, Dave Messenger and James Ford also starred.

Jack Sales came out on top of the three-way fight for the Caterham Roadsport title. Sales just edged out title rival Chris Hutchinson by the tightest of margins in the first race with Timothy Dickens third. The other title aspirant, Will Smith, who arrived at Silverstone with the upper hand, had to settle for seventh. Smith moved up two places in the final race of the season but another very close win, this time from Dickens, gave Sales the title ahead of Will Smith on the count-back procedure with both drivers tied on the same points.

There was less drama in the BookaTrack.com Caterham Superlight R300 Championship where Aaron Head confirmed what has looked like a formality of a title win for a while, with a fifth place finish in the first race. However, the big winner of the day was David Robinson who took the chequered flag in both races ahead of Terry Langley, to secure second spot in the final table. The other two podiums finishers were Sean Byrne and Lee Wiggins.

Arriving at Silverstone some thirty-eight points behind title favourite Andrew Dunn, Jack Lang produced two dominant drives to win both Formula Jedi races and thus the Championship. Dunn’s weekend went from bad to worse – a tenth place finish in race one followed by a DNF in race two, ending his hopes of taking his second Jedi crown. The other podium places were shared out amongst Matt Ryder and Ryan Harper-Ellam in race one and Michael Watton and Richard Gittings in race two.

Alistair Calvert confirmed his status as the Group 1 champion of the Pistonheads.com Caterham Academy, although he had to play second fiddle to Olly Wigg who won the race by a third of a second. The younger of the Wigg brothers, Ben, was third but that was enough to deprive Wigg the Elder of the runner-up honours in the final placings.

With the top three already secure in the Caterham Tracksport Championship, the main focus was on who could take advantage of the absence of champion Stephan Nuttall. Step forward Richard Noordhof! The Dutchman saved his best two performances of the season for the last meeting, winning the second race having run Andres Sinclair very close in the opener. Pete Fortune bagged a pair of P3s and Christian Szaruta can be pleased with his season’s work adding a P2 to his list of achievements.

Already crowned the Group 2 Academy champion, David Webber re-asserted his authority with another race win, almost twelve seconds ahead of Richard Ryder. Dalbeattie’s Paul Aram took third and in doing so completed the full season having made the podium in every race – quite an achievement.

The Academy drivers had a final fling for the year with two ‘Trophy’ races and it was the Group 1 contenders that shone the brightest in race one with Alistair Calvert winning from Ben Wigg. Steve McCulley maintained the honour of Group 2 with a third place finish but then Group 1 locked out the podium in race two with the Wigg boys dominant – Olly first, Ben second. Peter Rimer completed the steps of honour.

Warrington’s Adam Burgess went home with both of the Demon Tweeks/Sparco XR pots, beating Jonathan Wells and Lee Shropshire in the first race comfortably. However, the second race was much harder for the XR3i driver and he had to be at the top of his game to beat Tony Rudd’s XR2 to the line. Lee Shropshire completed a brace of P3 finishes.

Nissan GT Academy driver Ricardo Sanchez made a spectacular debut in the Arrowpak Sports & Saloon Car Championship races winning both at the wheel of his 370Z GT4 Nismo. Lee Allen was second in his Seat Leon and Doug Ellwood took third in his Marcos Mantis. The same trio made the podium for the second race in the same order and that was enough to confirm Doug Ellwood as the 2014 Arrowpak champion.

You can see all the race results and analysis at SILVERSTONE FINALS RESULTS