Josh Rattican denied Tom Lebbon the race win in the opening Ginetta Junior race of the weekend at Croft after a last lap move to snatch the victory.
An incident for Rowan Vincent further back brought out the safety car in the closing stages of the race. With less than a minute on the clock, the safety car returned to the pits and Lebbon brought the field round for one last flying lap.
Lebbon made a good restart, but he couldn’t shake Rattican and the Rattican made a move around the outside to snatch the lead.
With Tom Edgar now breathing down his neck, Lebbon was forced to defend P2 and couldn’t attempt to retake the position.
At the end of the lap, Rattican came through to take the win 0.723s ahead of Lebbon.
Second place was still enough for Lebbon to move into the championship lead, as title rival Bailey Voisin could only manage 10th.
Voisin had qualified on pole, but was disqualified from the session after scrutineering. He was sent to the back of the grid and forced to climb back through the order.
His progress was hindered at the end of the opening lap, when an incident for Josh Miller caused the Elite Motorsport driver to stop on track.
The safety car was brought out while Voisin was 15th, running behind Aston Millar and Will Rochford.
Voisin continued to climb forward after the restart, briefly setting the fastest lap of the race before the time was beaten by Rattican.
He had climbed up to 11th by the time the second safety car came out, and was just able to take 10th from Joe Wheeler on the final lap.
At the top of the order, Tom Edgar took a well earned podium after spending much of the race defending against Will Jenkins. Jenkins pushed Edgar hard, only for a small mistake to send him wide and drop him back down the order.
Jenkins recovered to take fifth from Freddie Tomlinson but ran out of laps before he could bring a challenge to Will Vincent.
Joel Pearson took seventh ahead of the Elite Motorsport duo of Tommy Pintos and Sebastian Hopkins.
Image courtesy of Ginetta/Jakob Ebrey Photography
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