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FAULKNER REGAINS PORSCHE CUP LEAD
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A fantastic win
in round eight of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB at Thruxton
this weekend (Sat/Sun 3rd/4th June) has moved Donegal's Damien Faulkner
back into the lead of the championship. The reigning champion took pole
position and won Saturday's race in his team SAS International Porsche
997, with fastest lap, but failed to capitalise on his pole position
on Sunday when he went out of the race on lap two following a coming
together with main championship rival Tim Harvey.
Faulkner was delighted with his form at the ultra high speed Thruxton circuit
as he had never previously won at the track. Pole position was his after only
two laps on Saturday morning and his early session time was enough to see him
beat Supercup series leader Richard Westbrook and Porsche works driver Sacha
Maassen to the top slot.
All the good work in qualifying was negated however by a slow start which saw
Richard Westbrook beat him away from the lights. Westbrook opened a lead of two
seconds by half distance but then on a surface notorious for its ability to destroy
tyres, the Irish drivers better race strategy came into play and he began to
close the gap. On lap sixteen with the gap down to just over half a second Westbrook's
tyres began to feel the heat and he slowed fearing a blow out, which hit him
two laps later. Faulkner took over at the front and coasted through the remaining
laps to take his second win of the year ahead of Harvey. The win along with bonus
points for fastest lap and pole position were enough to reverse Harvey's two
point championship lead.
Faulkner started from pole again on Sunday but a similar start to Saturday saw
him trail Harvey on lap one. At the start of lap two the reigning champ dived
for the inside of Harvey into the complex but clipped the English driver spinning
both. Faulkner was out on the spot but as Harvey pulled back onto the track he
triggered an incident which put him and four other drivers out of the race. With
both Faulkner and Harvey failing to score the Irishman retained the championship
lead he had regained on Saturday.
Speaking about the weekend Faulkner said, "It was particularly satisfying
to take pole given the presence of Porsche Supercup championship leader Richard
Westbrook and Porsche works driver Sacha Maassen. But for a poor start, Saturday
would have been a perfect day but it was still pretty good as we collected all
the available points for Team Parker SAS.
Our performance was due to all of the
hard work we did in Friday testing where we perfected our qualifying and race
set up's. Sunday's race was a disappointment and it again highlighted the need
for us to practice starts before the next race at Croft. I had superior pace
to Harvey and would have passed him sooner or later but I got caught out by how
slow he was on the approach to the complex. I was lucky that he then took himself
out of the race in a separate incident and made it mission accomplished for the
weekend as I took back the championship lead."
The Carrera Cup now takes a breather for the duration of football's
World Cup and does not resume until July 15th & 16th at Croft.
Faulkner's next outing will be a return to his home track for a
one off race in the British GT championship where he has been invited
to drive Trakspeeds Porsche 997 in the new GT3 class. Damien will
be out for class honours primarily but will be hoping to spring
a surprise and bring the relatively standard car home in among
the more powerful and advanced GT2 machinery. |
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