NELSON KING OPENS JCW ACCOUNT

Nelson King made the most of being drawn on pole for the final race of the weekend at Snetterton to snare his first win in the headline class of the Vertu Motors MINI CHALLENGE.

Having dominated the Cooper class last season, King made the step into JCWs with Graves Motorsport this season and had already taken to the podium, with the Snetterton finale providing the chance to try and grab a maiden win.

King was able to retain the lead at the start ahead of Joe Tanner, who nipped inside team-mate Sam Weller at Riches to move into second spot. Weller then came under attack from Dan Zelos heading up to the hairpin, with Bradley Gravett clearing both of the drivers ahead to jump into third.

As the fight for third developed, the lead pair were able to break away at the front, with King building enough of an advantage that Tanner wasn’t able to launch an attack for the win.

It meant King was out front when the action was halted following an incident for Baz Ward at Coram, giving him a first win of the year ahead of Tanner – who made it three second-place finishes for the weekend.

Gravett would hold on to third until the fifth lap when team-mate Zelos tried to make a move around the outside at Agostioni, with the pair going three-wide with Weller as saw the chance to dive down the inside.

Weller and Gravett then ran side-by-side on the run up to Hamilton where Gravett was eased wide, allowing Weller, Dominic Wheatley and Zelos to come through.

Weller’s hold on third would last until lap seven when Wheatley slid through going into Agostini and it looked like things were going to get worse on the following lap, as Zelos got ahead and then Oliver Meadows – who had passed Gravett two laps earlier – also tried to get ahead at Hamilton.

Contact between the pair going into Oggies saw Weller spin and drop outside the top ten, but the red flag for Ward’s incident saw the result rolled back to the end of lap seven – meaning Weller would be classified fourth ahead of Zelos and Meadows. Post-race however, Weller was handed a two position penalty that dropped him back behind Meadows for the contact between the pair.

Gravett would be classified in seventh spot ahead of Thomas Jack Lee, who put in another battling driver to fight his way up into eighth spot, with the top ten rounded out by Jamie Osborne and Lydia Walmsley.

Alongside Ward, two further drivers failed to finish in the shape of James Griffith and title hopeful Will Orton.

Griffith was running in P6 before an early spin going into the final corner dropped him to the back of the grid, with a clash with Jordan Kerridge then resulting in him going off into the barriers.

Orton meanwhile was recovering well from his DNF in race two and had fought his way up into the top ten before he was forced to bring his car with a repeat of the overheating issues that he had suffered earlier in the day.

The weekend results mean that Zelos now tops the points both before and after dropped scores going into the next round of the season at Oulton Park.