Lewis Gilbert bounced back in style from his disastrous weekend at Donington Park with his best weekend in the British Touring Car Championship, winning the Jack Sears Trophy and finishing in the points in all three races, while Charles Rainford also collected some silverware with the independents’ victory in Race Two.
With wet conditions at the start of the day, Daryl De Leon had a brilliant getaway from fifth on the grid and was briefly up to third. Unfortunately, in the greasy conditions he ran wide at the chicane and dropped down the order, though managed to gather himself back up and recover to fifth at the line, but a sporting penalty for a pre-race starting procedure issue dropped him down to 20th.
Charles Rainford battled from 11th on the grid to make it into the top ten, finishing an impressive seventh, while Lewis put on a fantastic performance, benefitting in part from many drivers opting to start the race on the hard tyre. The Scottish racer held his ground to finish tenth and score his first BTCC points.
In Race Two, Daryl was making good progress on the soft tyre, and was up to fourth on lap four, before he was collected by a rival who was struggling for grip on the harder tyre, which dropped him to the back of the pack. Daryl then did well to recover to 13th.
Charles had a great run to finish fifth and score his third independents’ class victory of the season, while there was another star performance from Lewis, finishing 11th and the best-placed of the Jack Sears Trophy drivers for the second race in a row.
With the circuit now fully dry for Race Three, and with all three WSR BMW 330i M Sports starting on the less favoured hard tyre, it was a more difficult race for the team. Charles had made good progress early on and was as high as fourth, but he was spun out by another competitor and dropped to the tail of the field, recovering to finish 15th. Daryl had a steady run to finish 13th, while Lewis was the best-placed of WSR’s drivers in 12th, and so at the end of the day he collected his first Jack Sears Trophy.
Lewis Gilbert: “I can’t believe I’m standing here with this. All I can say is a big thanks to the team, after what happened at Donington Park just to get the car back and going was a task, let alone getting here and taking a Jack Sears win. Massive thanks to WSR, honestly this would not be possible without them.”
Daryl De Leon: “It has been a tough day, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. Race One I had a really good result and was battling for a podium, lost the rear and ended up down in tenth. I had a really good recovery drive to come back to get the independents’ win, but then I got a 60-second penalty and I lost that. In Race Two we got smashed up a bit fighting for the podium, and then with the last race on the hard tyre, it was always going to be a difficult one. One to forget here at Croft, and we’ll regroup for Silverstone. Congratulations to my teammate Lewis Gilbert, mega drives from him all this weekend.
Charles Rainford: “We had a decent day. Every time we started a race we were a bit higher up and we came away with an independents’ win. It was a tricky Race Three – we got turned around by another car, but until then we were running really strong. So two top ten finishes, not where we want to be, and we are thinking maybe this isn’t really a BMW circuit anymore, but our heads are held high.
Dick Bennetts, Team Principal: “The pace was good today, but it was a lot of wrong place, wrong time for our drivers in respect of the others’ driving standards today. Charles got a good result in Race Two, and was running in seventh in Race Three until he was taken out. I’m really happy for Lewis to get three points finishes and also the Jack Sears Trophy. We’ll now regather ourselves and get ready for Silverstone in three weeks.”
