Faulkner and Westbrook share Carrera Cup wins at Thruxton
Monday, June 5th, 2006Race one
Damien Faulkner and Richard Westbrook each scored wins during rounds seven and eight of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB at Thruxton over the weekend (3/4 June) as two action-packed races thrilled a bumper BTCC crowd at the Hampshire venue.
Starting second on the grid for the opening race, Westbrook (Ipswich) got the jump on Faulkner (Co Donegal, Eire) to lead the pack into Allard bend as Tim Harvey (Witney, Oxfordshire) slotted into third.
Up front, Westbrook, driving for Cleveland-based Red Line Racing, soon started to edge away and stretched his lead to two seconds by lap eight. Meanwhile, Harvey was running a safe, if rather lonely, third and Sascha Maassen (Germany) ��� in the car entered by Porsche Cars in association with Vertu, the world���s first and only manufacturer of luxury handcrafted mobile phones - was holding off Michael Caine (Newmarket) for fourth.
Into the second half of the race, however, Westbrook���s lead started to reduce as Faulkner closed in once more. Then, on lap 14, Westbrook knew he had a problem. “I hit something really hard, I think it was debris on the track,” he later reported. “I took the risk to stay out, but two laps later the tyre went ���bang��� at Allard corner.”
While Westbrook limped back to the pits, Faulkner was left with a useful margin over Harvey and took the flag three seconds clear of his chief championship rival. “We badly needed that and my team, Team Parker with SAS, really deserves the win,” said Faulkner. “This is my first win at Thruxton, so it���s really special.”