ALEX KEENS ROUNDS OUT SILVERSTONE OPENER WITH RACE THREE WIN

Alex Keens secured the early advantage in the Mairon Motorsport MINI CHALLENGE Trophy season with victory in the final race of the weekend at Silverstone.

The defending champion followed up his race two win with another strong performance in the weekend finale, which once again provided a huge battle at the front for the victory.

Keens started from the grid behind team-mate Matt Luff and Team Avago’s Josh Wilby, with Wilby grabbed the lead off the start only for Keens to emerge from lap one at the front having managed to get ahead of both of his rivals.

That kicked off a race long battle between the trio at the front as they once again looked to lock out the podium positions, with Luff grabbing the lead on lap two at Becketts only for Keens to reclaim it a lap later.

Shortly after losing the lead, Luff lost second to Wilby going through the final corner and he briefly moved to the front only to be demoted back to second by Keens – with Wilby then falling down as low as sixth when he was forced wide out of the train of cars that was building up behind.

Luff worked his way back to the front as rookie Josh Selvadorai also got involved in the lead fight but heading into he final lap it was Luff who led Keens at the font, with Wilby behind.

Going into Brooklands, Keens took the outside line knowing it would give him the inside line for the following corner and it was enough to get ahead and grab the win by less than two-tenths of a second.

“It couldn’t have gone much better this weekend,” he said. “The team has done a great job and it’s been so close all weekend at the front.

“It’s important to get these points on the board as the new drivers are only going to quicker and it’s a long season, so this is a really good start.”

Luff sits second in the standings having added a third podium of the weekend to his tally, with Wilby recovering to take the flag in third place.

However, Wilby was handed a one place penalty for gaining an unfair advantage when dicing against Luca Marinoni Osborne as he worked his way back up the order, which moved the Westbourne Motorsport man up into the podium spots.

For much of the the race, the impressive Selvadorai looked set to take the rookie cup win but he would lose out late on to Richard Jepp, who capped a strong weekend of his own with both the Rookie Cup and Directors Cup wins in fifth overall, with Selvadorai forced to settle for sixth.

Ashley Gregory recovered from a ten place grid penalty to take seventh ahead of EXCELR8 team-mate Jorrel Julius, with the top ten rounded out by Chris Doble and Harry Smith.

Doble holds the early Rookie Cup lead by virtue of his two earlier class wins, with the next Cooper round coming at Snetterton alongside the BTCC in May.