Basingstoke ObserverNICK Halstead, driving in the G55 Pro category, endured another challenging weekend at the Ginetta GT4 Supercup at Oulton Park in Cheshire but came away with a pair of top-five finishes to add to his Brands Hatch podium.
Having suffered a suspension failure in Friday testing, the racer from Andwell, near Basingstoke, was in fightback mode across the rest of the weekend; qualifying fifth.
He improved that result by one place in Saturday’s race and drove sensibly amid the Sunday carnage to repeat the finish. He’s fourth in the standings and only eight points off a top three position.
Nick said: “It was a bit of a frustrating weekend, caused by the suspension issue in testing. I’d been second in Pro in the opening session so I felt we could really do something here, but what happened in the second session put an end to those hopes as we never really got the car into the right performance window after that. If that hadn’t happened and I’d qualified better then maybe the races would have worked out differently, but in Race Two certainly I was behind the carnage on the first lap, had to go onto the grass to avoid it and thought I’d picked up a puncture, while the other Pro cars were ahead of it and got through unscathed. We’ll get back on it for Knockhill.”
Paul McNeilly, Team Principal added: “There was some questionable driving out there and not for the first time this season in Ginetta categories, we’ve suffered at the hands of others. Nick scored a couple of solid results given what happened to him on Friday and when we get to Croft we should be set to continue our progress.”
The next round takes place at Knockhill, Scotland, on July 30-31.
