Stephanie Hobeika bounces back to secure podium finish at Snetterton

Stephanie Hobeika claimed her fourth podium of the season in the Radical Club Challenge Championship, as the Lebanese overcame adversity at Snetterton and maintained her record of standing on the rostrum in at least one race per weekend in her rookie campaign.

Photo credits: Ollie Read Photography

Stephanie Hobeika claimed her fourth podium finish of the season in the Radical Club Challenge Championship as she overcame adversity at Snetterton. After qualifying fourth within Class C in a wet session, Hobeika retired from race one after a late-race technical issue. The DW Racing driver bounced back to finish on the podium in race two where the Lebanese driver delivered a consistent performance.

Hobeika has made an excellent start to her circuit racing career having stood on the class podium in both Radical Club Challenge Championship events to date. The Lebanese driver made considerable progress during the season opener at Brands Hatch, before a consistent weekend at Silverstone netted her another Class C trophy.

Since the previous meeting of the season, Hobeika took another step in her career by taking part in an official test session for the Wera Tools British F4 Championship. This marked a significant step up in performance for Hobeika as she completed 66 laps for the Hitech TGR team. This test came at Snetterton and therefore enabled Stephanie to bank vital track time ahead of the Radical Club Challenge Championship’s visit to Norfolk.

Photo credits: Ollie Read Photography

After reacclimatising to the Radical SR1 in Friday’s dry free practice sessions, Hobeika was targeting a strong qualifying performance on Saturday morning. Conditions had changed following overnight rain and therefore a wet track provided an additional challenge in just a fifteen-minute session.

Hobeika did a nice job to remain on the circuit in spite of the treacherous conditions, while consistently improving her times. In an expanded six-car Class C field, the DW Racing driver set the fourth fastest time among the Radical SR1 machines with a quickest lap of a 2:39.613.

Ahead of the first race, the track had dried and therefore conditions were different for the first of two twenty-five-minute contests at Snetterton. Hobeika lined up from fourth within Class C and made a good start to move ahead of Scott Lear while falling behind Vikram Sudera. Hobeika began lap two just a tenth of a second behind Sudera as the battle for the final step on the podium was closely-contested.

As the race settled into a rhythm, Hobeika held fourth before an incident involving Sudera and Class B racer Mark Grason saw both drivers enter the pit lane. As she avoided the slowing cars ahead, Hobeika fell behind Lear and therefore she remained in fourth position as the fourth lap got underway. A series of personal best times from both Lear and Hobeika saw them extend their considerable margin over Christopher Seymour who ran in fifth within Class C.

Lear began to edge away in the middle portion of the race, before successive personal best times from Hobeika saw her cut the margin. The gap remained at around two seconds during the second half of the race, before both drivers had to contend with the faster Class A and Class B machines making their way through.

Following some good traffic management, Hobeika closed the gap to less than half a second as the final lap begun. Misfortune then struck as Hobeika retired from the race on the final lap with a technical issue as she battled for a spot on the Class C podium.

Photo credits: Ollie Read Photography

Great work from the DW Racing team allowed Hobeika to take her position on the grid for the second race of the weekend. Starting positions were based on the second fastest laps set in qualifying and therefore Stephanie lined up from fourth in Class C. Hobeika made a clean start and immediately moved up to third position as she overtook Lear.

Aaron Rose who was running second in class had been given a ten-second time penalty for a starting infringement and therefore Hobeika was fighting hard to remain close to her Class C rival. In the early stages of the race, the DW Racing driver was growing the margin behind her and Stephanie was aided by Lear and Sudera battling for fourth position.

By lap six, she had grown the gap to ten seconds and this was testament to her superb consistency. As Lear overtook Sudera on lap seven, he immediately began to eat into Hobeika’s advantage. Two laps later, Stephanie’s margin had shrunk to just five seconds, however she responded with a personal best time.

On lap 11, Lear pulled into the pits with a technical issue and this relieved the pressure in the closing stages. Hobeika maintained an excellent pace to the chequered flag to claim a superb podium finish as the Lebanese racer finished third in Class C.

Hobeika maintained her record of standing on the rostrum in at least one race per weekend to begin her Radical Club Challenge Championship campaign. The DW Racing driver took a step forward in performance at Snetterton and she will be looking to carry this forward into the next round of the championship which takes place on the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit on the weekend of July 12th/13th.