SAM WELLER BATTLES TO RACE THREE HONOURS AT SILVERSTONE

Sam Weller extended his lead in the Quaife MINI CHALLENGE standings with victory in the final race of the weekend at Silverstone.

Weller had started the reverse finale from third on the grid thanks to the reverse grid draw and jumped up to second at the start before dispatching with pole sitter Jason Lockwood going into Becketts for the first time.

Ronan Pearson quickly followed him through into second spot, with the pair quickly starting to establish a gap over the pack behind.

Heading through Woodcote on the third lap, Pearson managed to get a run on Weller to edge ahead over the start/finish line but as the pair headed into Copse to start lap four, Weller hung on around the outside to leave the two cars side-by-side heading up to Becketts.

Weller again managed to keep the outside line onto the Wellington Straight which meant the inside line for Brooklands, where he finally reclaimed the lead.

From there, the Hybrid Tune driver was able to keep his EXCELR8 rival at bay – despite Pearson setting the fastest lap – as they raced away from the fight for third place, eventually crossing the line together with a gap of more than 18 seconds to the third placed man.

Lockwood had held third in the early staged of the race before he was eased wide by Jack Mitchell going through Luffield at the end of lap six, with Dan Zelos briefly following through before Lockwood reclaimed the position on the following lap.

Mitchell and Lockwood would then become embroiled in a three-way battle for third spot that also included previous winner Alex Denning, with Lockwood getting back into third spot before he was then run wide on the following lap – dropping him down to eighth and leaving Mitchell ahead of Denning in third.

Denning would quickly move into the podium spots but as the laps ticked down, he would be handed a 15 second time penalty for multiple track limits infringements that meant even though he crossed the line third, he would drop back to 13th spot in the end results – albeit wrapping up the Rookie Cup crown.

That left Mitchell to cross the line in third spot ahead of Lewis Brown and a recovering Lockwood, although Mitchell was then penalised for contact with Lockwood and dropped down to fifth in the results.

After a tough start to race day, Sam Smith grabbed sixth to secure top Rookie honours on his first weekend in the series with Hybrid Tune, with Geri Racz and Robbie Dalgleish following behind to round out the top eight.

Ethan Hammerton was ninth, with James Griffith taking tenth achieving his goal of securing a top ten finish from the campaign.

That result however wasn’t enough to stop Joe Tanner from taking an unassailable lead in the Directors Cup points meaning just the overall title is still to be decided at Brands Hatch.

Weller will lead the way ahead of Pearson, with Lockwood, Denning and Mitchell completing the five drivers who remain in contention.