Guinchard leads Hillspeed 1-2 at slippery Oulton Park

Photo: Jackob Ebrey Photography

Hillspeed’s Daniel Guinchard scored his second GB4 victory by initially leading home team-mate Leandro Juncos in race two at Oulton Park.

Juncos was subsequently disqualified from the results for failing to comply with yellow flags, promoting KMR Sport’s Alex O’Grady to second and Elite Motorsport’s Alex Kattoulas to third.

As in Saturday’s opening contest, rain arrived while the cars were waiting in the assembly area. The weather soon subsided, however, and everyone remained on slick tyres when they were released onto the circuit. But the start was delayed as Pace Peformance’s Josh McLean crashed heavily while heading to the grid.

Guinchard converted pole into the lead once the action got underway and built a one-second advantage over Juncos, who fought his way up from fifth on the grid past all three Elite drivers.

Juncos had snatched fourth off the line from Isaac Phelps, swept by Ary Bansal into Cascades, and wrestled second away from Kattoulas through Island bend.

The safety car was deployed at the end of lap two after Graham Brunton Racing’s Mayer Deonarine slid off the road at Shell Oils hairpin while running ninth. Rain returned during the safety car period, leaving part of the circuit greasy for the restart.

Guinchard mastered the tricky conditions to eventually take victory by three seconds and extend his points lead in the process.

Having initially lost out to Phelps, Bansal recovered into fourth before challenging Kattoulas into the hairpin. But he ended up on the grass and lost ground after Kattoulas locked up and made slight contact with his rear-right wheel.

Kattoulas avoided damage and soon drove around the outside of Juncos at Cascades, only to get sideways on the slippery circuit one corner later and drop back to third.

Juncos held off O’Grady at the chequered flag, the latter having lunged up the inside of Kattoulas on the penultimate lap to grab his second podium of the meeting.

Phelps was classified fourth, while Douglas Motorsport’s Luke Hilton and Pace’s Stefan Bostandjiev passed Arden’s Leon Wilson on the final tour to take fifth and sixth respectively . Bansal was close behind Wilson in eighth, while Callum Baxter edged out his GBR team-mate Alex Berg to ninth.

Fortec Motorsports’ Jack Taylor was another to suffer a race-ending off at the hairpin, while KMR’s Megan Bruce and Arden’s Ava Dobson retired in a final-lap collison at Hislops, with Bruce handed a grid penalty for the race three for causing the incident.

Race results (8 laps)