Lebbon claims maiden victory at Brands Hatch

Tom Lebbon claimed his maiden Ginetta Junior championship victory to close in to within a point of early championship leader Bailey Voisin.

The pair were nose to tail on the final lap after Lebbon had passed the pole sitter earlier in the race. Voisin appeared to be lining up a move when a small mistake sent him onto the grass and dropped him a few car lengths behind Lebbon.

The following corner, the penultimate corner of the race, Lebbon also ran wide and over the grass but Voisin was too far back to take advantage. Voisin pulled back onto the tail of Lebbon as they entered the start finish straight, and was just 0.1s behind him as they took the chequered flag.

It was another overall strong race for R Racing, as Josh Rattican completed the podium in third and Freddie Tomlinson came home P5 behind Zak Taylor, but the success wasn’t shared evenly across the garage.

Aston Millar was taken out of the race early on after a collision with Will Jenkins sent them both into the gravel and brought out the safety car.

Joel Pearson spent the first half of the race in the battle at the sharp end of the field, fighting Taylor and Tomlinson for fourth. But contact with Taylor sent Pearson wide and dropped him down the order. Another wide moment caused Pearson to rejoin the track alongside two other drivers and almost collected them as he had damage with the car and was forced to pit.

Seb Hopkins finished sixth overall and completed the rookie podium. Tom Edgar took seventh ahead of Georgi Dimitrov, who had led the championship after Donington Park but a difficult qualifying session put him on the backfoot.

William Vincent and Liam McNeilly completed the top 10.

Image credit: Ginetta/Jakob Ebrey Photography

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