Gracie Mitchell claims first Porsche Sprint Challenge Great Britain victory
- LIAM REDFORD
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
Gracie Mitchell claimed a dominant lights-to-flag victory in Porsche Sprint Challenge Great Britain at Oulton Park while the Graves Motorsport driver maintained her 100% podium record to start the season.
Gracie Mitchell claimed a dominant lights-to-flag victory in Porsche Sprint Challenge Great Britain at Oulton Park while the Graves Motorsport driver maintained her 100% podium record to start the season.
Making her Porsche Sprint Challenge Great Britain debut at Donington Park, Mitchell made a superb start to her season. Securing three runner-up finishes in the CS class, Mitchell firmly established herself as an early championship contender. Over the course of the event, the Graves Motorsport driver edged closer to teammate Gabe Fairbrother as the pair set the standard within the CS category.
Friday’s action at Oulton Park consisted of two free practice sessions with Mitchell making good progress throughout the day. After setting a quickest lap of a 1:28.542 for second position in the CS class during the morning session, Mitchell improved by almost three-quarters of a second to end the day. Setting a fastest time of a 1:27.899 in the second free practice session, Mitchell remained in second position within the CS class and just four tenths of a second behind Fairbrother.
Saturday morning’s qualifying session brought a change in conditions with a damp track leading to all drivers initially fitting the wet tyres. Mitchell thrived in the challenging conditions as she built up her speed, before claiming provisional pole in the CS class as the session approached halfway.
In the closing stages of qualifying, a split in strategy took place throughout the field with some drivers switching to the slicks while others remained on the wets. Mitchell continued to improve her lap times and with a fantastic final lap, she claimed CS class pole position by a margin of almost two seconds. Setting a time of a 1:31.913, the Graves Motorsport driver also qualified ahead of two of the more powerful RS class machines.
The track was fully dry for the first race of the weekend which was held on Saturday afternoon. Lining up from pole position in the CS class, Mitchell made an excellent start and held the lead through the opening lap ahead of teammate Fairbrother. Ending lap one with a gap of half a second, Mitchell extended this margin to three-quarters of a second at the conclusion of the second lap with the race now entering a rhythm.
Mitchell was remaining fast and consistent at the head of the field with the Graves Motorsport teammates opening up a sizeable gap over third place driver Alistair Weston. The lead margin remained at just under one second until the safety car was deployed on lap five following an incident for RS Pro class driver Ethan Hammerton.
The race resumed on lap nine and after making a confident restart, Mitchell once again began opening up her lead margin. Following a new personal best lap of the race of 1:27.640 on lap 11, Mitchell’s gap to Fairbrother now stood at one and a half seconds as she secured herself some breathing space heading into the closing stages.
After Fairbrother received a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits, the pressure was relieved further with Mitchell claiming her first victory in Porsche Sprint Challenge Great Britain by a margin of six seconds once Fairbrother’s penalty was applied. It was a dominant lights-to flag victory for Mitchell who banked maximum championship points after claiming pole position and also setting the fastest lap of the race in the CS class.
Conditions remained dry for race two of the weekend which took place on Sunday afternoon. With the grid positions based upon the second fastest times set in qualifying, Mitchell again started from pole position in the CS class. As the lights went out, it was a close start among the CS class competitors with Mitchell losing out to teammate Fairbrother.
At the end of lap one, Mitchell was just half a second behind her Graves Motorsport teammate as she looked to apply pressure to Fairbrother. By quickly building a sizeable margin to Giancarlo Romano behind, Mitchell could focus forward as the leading pair traded fastest sector times. After setting a lap time faster than Fairbrother on lap five, the lead margin once again reduced to half a second.
After Mitchell did a nice job to keep the gap stable, a small mistake on lap eight saw her lose one second with Fairbrother now almost two seconds clear at the head of the CS class field. Fairbrother continued to edge away in the closing stages with the margin extending to three seconds at the conclusion of lap 11.
A superb late-race rally from Mitchell saw her cut the gap once more with Fairbrother claiming the CS class victory by only two seconds. Mitchell secured a superb runner-up result while missing out on the fastest lap by just four thousandths of a second.
Race three of the weekend took place later on Sunday afternoon and with the grid positions based upon the results from race two, Mitchell lined up from second in the CS class. Although the track was predominantly dry, a light rain shower earlier in the day meant that some small damp patches remained away from the racing line.
Mitchell got a good start and retained second at the end of lap one, while teammate Fairbrother opened out a one second lead. After setting almost identical lap times on the second tour, the Graves Motorsport drivers were extending their advantage over third place driver Mark McKenzie. This enabled them to continue exchanging fastest sectors with Fairbrother beginning to open out a small margin.
By lap six, Mitchell was four seconds adrift of her teammate, however the safety car was then deployed for an incident at Knickerbrook involving Richard Hosking which allowed her to close back in.
The race resumed with four minutes left on the clock and Mitchell was keen to apply pressure to her rival. She did a nice job to remain close to Fairbrother in the final stages as the two CS class leaders reasserted their dominance over the rest of the field. Taking the chequered flag in second position, Mitchell crossed the line less than one second behind Fairbrother to complete an excellent weekend at Oulton Park.
It was a landmark weekend for Mitchell who claimed her first ever victory in the series with a superb performance in race one. Her speed in changeable conditions was especially strong and this will be particular cause for optimism with the next round of Porsche Sprint Challenge Great Britain taking place at Knockhill in Scotland on the weekend of 8th/9th August.
