Harper masters treacherous conditions for race one win

JTR's Dan Harper clinches his second Porsche Carrera Cup GB race victory of the 2018 season after overcoming the wet conditions ahead of Dino Zamparelli at Knockhill.

Having started the opening race from pole position, Harper had to fight his way back into a race winning position after dropping behind his JTR stablemate Lewis Plato at the end of the sixth lap.

In a brief moment of confusion, Harper found himself held up by the backmarker Steve Gales coming out of the final hairpin, which allowed Plato to briefly power into the lead before the safety car came out on the following lap.

While Plato led the way as the race resumed on the 14th lap of the race, Harper made his intentions clear and muscled his way back into the lead with a forceful move on his team mate at Clark corner.

That proved to be the decisive move of the race, as Plato began to slip back into the clutches of championship leader Zamparelli. Plato's race ultimately unravelled when the JTR driver spun out of second place on lap 18, after losing the rear of his 911 GT3 cup car at the final hairpin.

That promoted Zamparelli into second, where the Redline driver extended his points lead over Tio Ellinas, who finished a handful of seconds back to complete the rostrum order in third.

“Unbelievable! I couldn’t be happier. I got a great start and was able to control the race, before unfortunately I had an issue with a back marker, had to brake on the straight and dropped to second," said the race winner.

“I didn’t panic, the safety car helped me get the tyres back up to temperature and I could make my move after the restart. Our pace was great from there and I’m ecstatic to take the win!”

Ellinas could count himself lucky to finish on the podium after a brief off at Clark corner almost put the former F1 test-driver out of the race with just eight laps to go.

Failing to fully capitalise on Ellinas' error, George Gamble and Tom Wrigley completed the top-five order, ahead of Plato, who eventually settled for sixth.

Despite trailing Dan Vaughn for much of the race, Seb Perez took the Pro-Am category victory ahead of the Motorbase Performance driver, with Dan Welch completing the Pro-Am podium a position behind, ninth overall.

Peter Mangion took another Am category win after Peter Kyle-Henney fell off the track at the very end of the race.