ALEX KEENS WINS RED-FLAGGED SECOND SILVERSTONE ENCOUNTER

Defending champion Alex Keens scored his first win of the Mairon Motorsport MINI CHALLENGE Trophy season with victory in the second race of the weekend at Silverstone.

Keens made it a double win for the weekend for Graves Motorsport in the reverse grid encounter, which would come to a slightly early end following a two-car incident at Brooklands in the closing minutes.

With the top twelve reversed on the grid for the start it was Wera Alliance Academy Racing’s Beanie Reece who sat on pole position but she was slow away from the line when the lights went out as fellow front-row starter Louis Fleet instead grabbed the lead going down to Copse for the first time.

Harry Smith had also got away well at the start and having jumped up from the second row into second spot, he grabbed the lead from Fleet going into Brooklands, with a stunning first lap from Keens and team-mate Matt Luff seeing them gain six spots apiece to sit third and fourth.

Having moved ahead of Fleet, Keens then dived past Smith going into Brooklands to take the lead, putting two cars between himself and Luff – who had Chris Doble and Josh Wilby close behind.

Once clear of Fleet, Luff joined onto the top two and they were soon joined by Wilby as he worked his way through to fourth to join the podium battle, despite the loss of an overtaking spot when Beanie Reece’s challenging race came to an end in the gravel at Maggotts.

When the yellow flags had been withdrawn, Wilby wasted little time in grabbing third from Smith and then tried to attack the Graves duo ahead at the same corner a handful of laps later.

Although unable to make up two spots in one, Wilby did get the inside line for the run down to Brooklands and took second away from Luff before turning his attention to Keens at the front.

Wilby managed to get himself ahead of the champion but a clash between team-mate Fleet and rookie Gio Santora at Brooklands saw the red flag thrown and the result taken back a lap, at which points Keens was still ahead.

It meant victory for the champion ahead of Wilby, with Luff taking third spot as the podium finishers were covered by just sixth tenths of a second.

Behind them, Chris Doble took fourth spot to secure the Rookie Cup honours having managed to fight his way ahead of Smith, with the top five completed by a charging Josh Selvadorai.

The MRM driver had lined up back in 18th on the grid after his dramas in race one but produced a fine drive through the field to finish just half a second off the rookie win, with Smith rounding out the top six despite a late slide at Brooklands whilst dicing in the midfield pack.

Ashley Gregory, who had hoped to be in the podium fight, had to settle for seventh spot ahead off Luca Marinoni Osborne, with Leo Richardson able to show his potential as he came through from outside the top 20 to finish ninth having managed to get rid of the engine issues he had faced on Saturday. 

Post race however, Gregory was excluded from the results having been found to be at fault for the incident involving Fleet and Santora, having tagged the rear of Fleet’s car going into the corner.

It moved Marinoni Osborne and Richardson up into seventh and eight ahead of Directors Cup winner Richard Jepp, with the top ten completed by Isaac Doble.