Team Redline Racing secured another brilliant haul of podium finishes in the Porsche Visit Cayman Islands Sprint Challenge GB during the penultimate event of the season at Thruxton (28/29 August).
It marked a second visit to Thruxton for the Sprint Challenge GB this year, following the season opener in May, also in support on the British Touring Car Championship. On that occasion, there were standout podium finishes for Team Redline Racing’s Jack Bartholomew and Nigel Rice.
Bartholomew once again led the charge for the Teesside squad in the Pro ranks. The former one-make Lamborghini champion kicked off the weekend with a brilliant performance in qualifying to secure pole position for the third consecutive meeting.
Slipping to second at the start of race one, he pressured the leader through the race and was ready to make a challenge for top spot when an unfortunate spin led to contact with the pit wall. The consequences of the incident sadly forced the Sussex racer to sit out the second race.
In the Am class, Alex Malykhin enjoyed his best weekend so far with the team. Qualifying second fastest, he lost ground early in race one but fought back superbly to second. Better was to come in race two as he ran as high as third overall at one stage en-route to another second place class finish.
Rice backed up his great performances at Thruxton in May with another strong showing around the fastest circuit in the UK. Emerging in third place from some entertaining battles in race one, he repeated that result with another top drive in race two, which was televised live on ITV4.
Completing the team’s driving ranks was Pete Chambers, who narrowly missed out on adding to his own Am podium tally for 2021. From fifth on the grid, he impressively fought through to second at one stage in race one. Eventually finishing fourth, he then added a fifth place result.
Simon Leonard – Managing Director: “Everyone in the team is delighted to have picked up another great trophy haul, though we’re gutted for Jack. He showed brilliant speed all meeting and was really hassling the leader in race one before the unfortunate incident. He deserved some silverware from this weekend.
“Alex has made fantastic progress since joining the team and made another step forward to be challenging for the class wins over the weekend. Nigel was hot on his heels throughout and is building quite an impressive collection of Sprint Challenge GB trophies now.
“Pete really impressed us as well and was in the mix for the podiums too, it just didn’t quite fall his way. While we’ve unfortunately come up short in the title battles this season, we’re still incredibly proud of our results this season and will be looking to end on a high in the season finale.”
The second ever season of the Porsche Visit Cayman Islands Sprint Challenge GB comes to its conclusion in seven weeks’ time on the Donington Park GP circuit (16/17 October). In the meantime, Team Redline Racing continue their Porsche Carrera Cup GB campaign at their local circuit, Croft in North Yorkshire, next month (18/19 September).
Image from Porsche GB.