While Henry Cameron scored a double win in the Ginetta Junior Championship’s Freshman Trophy, there was also a Rookie class podium for team-mate Freddie Lloyd as well as encouraging debuts in both the GB4 Championship and Ginetta GT Championship.
Ginetta Junior Championship
Both Henry Cameron – whose only previous car-racing experience was in last year’s Winter Series – and team-mate Freddie Lloyd, who was a total novice pre-weekend, played starring roles at Donington Park.
It was 14-year-old Henry who struck first; climbing the field strongly to take victory in the Freshman Trophy – for drivers without a significant karting background – in Saturday’s opener.
That result came despite a safety car-interrupted race that thwarted his progress at a critical moment, after which he refocused to charge to the chequered flag.
Freddie, meanwhile, was on a mighty fightback after a left-rear puncture left him stranded on track during qualifying without a laptime and relegated him to the back row of the grid for each of the weekend’s first two races.
The 15-year-old from Sevenoaks was undaunted, however, and tore through the order twice from 27th spot to finish ninth and eighth overall (eighth and sixth in the Rookie class) and secure a fourth-row start in Sunday’s finale.
Despite a mid-race safety car freezing the field for three laps and robbing the former European X30 Junior karting champion of overtaking opportunities, he was quickly back in action and finished an impressive fourth overall.
That result also put him on the Rookie podium in third spot and left him seventh in the Championship points and Fox fourth in the Teams’ Championship.
Henry, who was an innocent victim in a multi-car incident that ended his morning race, charged forwards through the Freshman Trophy field to take the class win in a weekend-best 15th spot overall.
That result was Fox’s 300th in total; the first coming with a debut victory in November 2010 in a Lotus 1000km race at Brands Hatch that featured Team Principal Paul McNeilly and British Touring Car star Paul O’Neill on the driving strength.
Ginetta GT Championship
Series rookies Oliver Fordham and James Rolling both faced stiff challenges as they embarked on their debuts in their V8-engined Ginetta G56 GTP8s.
Ascot-based Welshman James qualified 11th in a closely-contested Am class and finished there too after a spin. He improved to 10th on Sunday in what was the series first double-length, 40-minute race featuring a mandatory pitstop.
Oliver, from Halstead, Essex, showed strong single-lap speed during both races; his best laptimes proving faster than a number of vastly more-experienced drivers in the field. He recovered from spins in both races to finish 10th and 11th in class.
Paul McNeilly, Team Principal, said: “It feels fantastic to score our 300th podium finish. Weekends like this one come at you thick and fast so to hit a number like that forces you to reflect on the exceptional work that’s been done over the past 14 years by the staff here and the drivers. Now, of course, we’ll aim to reach 400 as quickly as we can. With drivers like Freddie and Henry, it looks like we can increase that number this year. Henry drove very well to win the Freshman Trophy twice and Freddie made up more than 40 places across the three races and without the puncture in qualifying would have had an even better weekend. In the GTs, James and Olly were starting from square one, but have gained so much from the experience and will be much stronger for it next time out.”
