Strong points haul for Hancock at Rockingham

Jota Sport’s Sam Hancock secured fifth and fourth place finishes from a difficult weekend at Rockingham in rounds 3 and 4 of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB.

London-based Hancock set the fastest time in practice on Friday at the Northamptonshire circuit but couldn’t repeat that performance in Saturday’s qualifying session and Sunday’s two races, as he struggled to find the optimum set up on his Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car.

Race 1

Starting fourth, Sam didn’t make the best start of his career, losing two places off the line, but was soon on the tail of Charles Bateman, fighting hard with the Team Parker Racing driver for much of the race. After a furious battle between the two, Hancock made his move at Brooke to take fifth, but ran out of laps to catch the leading quartet.

Race 2

Hancock made a much better start to race 2 and was third at the end of the first lap having disposed of Dean Smith and championship leader Michael Caine in the opening exchanges. After pushing hard to join the leading battle between Tim Harvey and Tim Bridgman, he began to suffer with a lack of front end grip and fell back into the clutches of Caine.

A stoic defence made for some superb action over the remainder of the race but, with just a few laps remaining, Caine forced his way through at the final chicane, leaving Hancock to settle for fourth.

Hancock said: "It’s been a difficult weekend, but sometimes you have those in motorsport. When you do, it’s crucial to take as many points as you possibly can, so to have left Rockingham with 28 is a definite plus.

We were very quick in both wet and dry conditions on Friday, so to have ended up only fighting for fourth in qualifying and the races is a little confusing. It shows we’ve got plenty of work ahead of us and we’ll get stuck into that immediately during Tuesday’s test at Thruxton so we’re ready for the next round."

- Andy Wilkinson, also photo