O’Sullivan aiming to take title fight to Hedley after maiden victory

Zak O’Sullivan aiming to close the gap to James Hedley in the Ginetta Junior championship standings after his maiden victory at Snetterton.

O’Sullivan took two wins from four-races at the Norfolk circuit, reducing Hedley’s lead at the top of the order from 95 points to 74.

The R Racing driver now hopes to take the fight to Hedley in the second half of the season, but acknowledged it won’t be easy.

“The plan is to catch Hedley, but we’ll see how the races go,” he told Ginetta Junior Update. “It’s so unpredictable, but we’ll just hang on and see how it as at Brands GP, really.”

O’Sullivan wasn’t surprised to Hedley on the podium in race three, despite his title rival starting 19^th on the grid after being handed a five place grid penalty for an incident in the opening race of the weekend.

As O’Sullivan enjoyed a clean race to take his maiden Ginetta victory, Hedley battled through the order to finish third, his 10^th podium of the season.

“Good and quick drivers always come through to get a good result, as we saw yesterday,” O’Sullivan said.

“Judging by how the race went, it turned into a big battle and [Hedley’s] race craft is quite good, so I wasn’t surprised.”

O’Sullivan enjoyed a strong recovery drive of his own in the first race of the weekend, after contact with Will Martin dropped him down to ninth.

He had briefly led the race before a lock up dropped him back to third. He was trying to pass Richardson Racing’s Martin when the pair made contact and O’Sullivan was sent into a spin.

After a short safety car period, O’Sullivan managed to climb back up the order to finish fourth.

“I had a good start, managing to get into the lead after a few laps of battling, but then I had an issue with the brakes into the hair pin and locked all four wheels,” he said.

“I went back down to third, made a move on Will into the next corner, and he turned in.

“It was 50-50, but I ended up coming off worse. I had a spin and got collected by a few people. The safety car came out. Once it came in we had one lap and I managed to go from ninth to fourth in one lap, which is a pretty good recovery.”