Tom Wrigley bounced back superbly from his opening weekend disappointment to secure an unexpected maiden Porsche Carrera Cup GB podium finish during a hugely positive second meeting of the season at Donington Park over Easter weekend (15/16 April).
After lighting up the timesheets with top three pace in official practice, Wrigley fought to a fantastic fifth place finish on the road in the opening race of the weekend, but exclusions for two drivers ahead of him would give him a breakthrough podium result in only his third race in the series.
That result was the highlight of a really promising meeting for the Chirk-based racer, which continued a love affair with the Donington Park circuit, around which he secured a sensational race win hat-trick last season on his way to the Michelin Ginetta GT4 Supercup title.
Wrigley started proceedings with a standout performance in Thursday’s second free practice session, finishing just three hundredths of a second away from the top of the times as he ended the day third overall in the classifications.
The 24 year old improved his pace for Saturday’s qualifying session, with a 1m 07.132s effort putting him fifth on the grid for the opening race later that day in his In2 Racing Porsche, however he couldn’t get the second fastest time he needed to improve upon eleventh for Sunday’s race two.
Wrigley would lose a couple of positions over the first half of the opening race, but he got himself back on the tail of the top six and benefitted from a collision ahead to slot into fifth position, which he maintained with a composed drive to the chequered flag.
Already pleased with his best result in the series so far, there would be further joy for Wrigley when two cars ahead were later excluded for technical infringements, which promoted him into a first top three finish in the series and secured him a coveted piece of silverware.
The second race would be a relatively subdued affair the next day, with Wrigley impressively gaining three places on the opening lap to move into eighth, but braking problems would leave him unable to make further progress for the remainder of the race.
The weekend’s results mean Wrigley has moved up to ninth overall in the championship standings and second in the Rookie class category ahead of the next two rounds of the season at his home circuit Oulton Park in Cheshire on 20/21 May.
Tom Wrigley: “The pace has always been there in me and the car since we started with the Porsche, so it’s been great to finally be able to show that properly. There was a little bit of fortune for us to get the podium in race one, but we were in the mix and I’m over the moon to have got the trophy.
“We had some issues with the brakes in race two so couldn’t really make much progress, but that doesn’t take away from what has been a brilliant weekend. Our pace has been really strong and if we put it all together, we’re confident we can challenge for more podiums at Oulton Park.”
Source. Simon Paice Media/Photo. Dan Bathie/Porsche
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