Teenage racer Will Aspin continued the strong start to his maiden Porsche Carrera Cup GB season with a Pro-Am class victory at Brands Hatch, crossing the line an impressive fifth overall in the process.

The tight, undulating Brands Hatch Indy circuit, just 1.2 miles in length, would provide close battles throughout the field, underlined in Friday’s free practice sessions where Will finished just 0.3s off the quickest Pro-Am time, but found himself down in sixth place.

After some work prior to Saturday’s qualifying session, the Italian racer and his Team Parker Racing crew worked to improve the handling of the car, finishing up fourth in class and just one position behind team-mate and reigning Pro-Am champion Ryan Ratcliffe.

Conditions on race day were completely at odds with the warm, clear weather that everyone had experienced on Friday and Saturday, with overcast skies, rain, and a tricky damp circuit adding to the challenge on track. Will made an excellent start, making up five overall positions in the opening laps and adding another before rain started to fall.

With the field on slick tyres, cars began to slide off the circuit, including Will, before red flags were shown, allowing everyone to pit for wet Michelins. Lining up for the restart, which would be a five-minute dash to the flag, he kept calm and cool while others made errors, including the class leader, meaning he assumed first position and sixth overall at the end of the contest.

As the number six was drawn for the partially reversed grid for race two, Will looked to be starting on pole, but a post-race penalty for Matty Graham moved him up to fifth, but also dropping him to second on the grid. On a fully wet track for the final 34-lap contest, he started well and was careful not to fight too hard with Pro class rivals, but increasingly struggling with the handling of his Porsche 911 GT3 Cup machine, found Ratcliffe and Charles Rainford on his tail.

As Rainford claimed the lead, Ratcliffe made a move at Clearways and, despite minor contact between the pair, Will came off second best as he slid into the gravel and retirement from the race. Despite the setback, the Florence native sits second in the Pro-Am standings with 12 of the season’s 16 races still to run.

Will and his Team Parker Racing colleagues will now have a four-week break in action before heading to another challenging circuit, Cheshire’s Oulton Park, over the weekend of June 11/12.

Will Aspin

“We showed that our overall pace was really good, but we were still lacking a bit here and there. We sorted it out going into Saturday qualifying, but a mistake from my side caused us to be a bit further back than we should have been going into race one. On the first two laps we made up five places, but unfortunately, the weather started to turn later on and going into Surtees we had a spin. Luckily for us a red flag came out, so the results went back to the lap before, and we lined up eighth for the restart. Two people threw it off in front of me, so I finished P6, which would have given me pole for race two but a penalty for another driver moved me to P5.

“Unfortunately, we didn't have the best start to race two. We were strong for the first couple of laps and had good pace, but then struggled with the car and trying to get the power down out of the corners was difficult. It ended in a DNF after some contact with another driver, but in the end, it is how it is, it's going to happen once or twice; that's racing. To be honest I think I've had a good weekend, I'm not too flustered by it, and we can go to Oulton Park knowing that we have pace, so we'll come back ten times stronger.”