Double Snetterton Podium Helps Guinchard Solidify GB4 Championship Lead
Daniel Guinchard delivered a series of excellent performances at a baking hot Snetterton 300 Circuit over the weekend, 12th/13th July, to add two more GB4 Championship partnered by the BRDC podiums to his season tally and bolster his lead at the top of the driver standings.
Racing to third place in round 10 on Saturday afternoon at the Norfolk venue, Guinchard went one better in round 11 on Sunday morning – just missing out on the win by 0.4 seconds following a last lap attempt at grabbing the lead – and then capped the event with seventh place in round 12. He departs Snetterton leading the championship by 36 points, and also set fastest lap in races one and two.
Hillspeed team-mate Leandro Juncos produced the best qualifying performance of his maiden season with an excellent third fastest time, but misfortune in rounds 10 and 11 followed. Juncos finished fifth in the opener, but an out-of-position start penalty meant an eventual result of 10th place. In race two, he was sent into retirement to the pits with damage after a tangle while dicing for position on lap six.
Race three brought cheer for Juncos with a tremendous drive from 10th on the grid. Delivering some outstanding overtaking, which he has become renowned for during his first year in GB4, the Hillspeed racer carved his way through to fifth in a contest which was limited to only four racing laps after a lengthy Safety Car period.
Another competitive GB4 weekend for Hillspeed
Following two days of testing the serious action of qualifying came on Saturday morning where the Hillspeed team-mates locked out the second row of the grid for race one of the weekend. Juncos produced his best showing so far with third fastest, a time of 1m47.177 seconds, while Guinchard was fourth with a time of 1m47.269 seconds.
At the start of round 10 later in the afternoon Guinchard managed to launch well enough to move into third ahead of the sister car on the run to Riches, with Juncos emerging from the right-hander in fifth position. The American-Argentine racer had erroneously crept before the lights went out and so stood on the brakes, thus impacting his actual launch from the grid and resulting in a 10 second time penalty.
Guinchard stayed very close to the lead pair of cars for the majority of the race, and set the fastest lap of 1m48.231 seconds on the sixth tour, before wisely opting to settle for third towards the end. Juncos harried the fourth place car but remained in fifth position to the conclusion on lap 10, the time penalty frustratingly dropping him to 10th position on corrected times.
Second best times from Saturday’s qualifying placed Guinchard third on the grid for round 11 on Sunday, with Juncos having had to settle for a spot on the fifth row – losing a lap time for track limits in qualifying which might have delivered a front row or second row start. Guinchard started the race well, instantly rocketing into second, and he remained close behind the lead car for the first few laps.
Redoubling his efforts into the second half of the race, he set fastest lap on the sixth tour and piled pressure onto the leader – chief championship rival Ary Bansal – before making a couple of serious attempts at a pass on the 10th and final tour. In the end, Guinchard took the flag just 0.4 seconds shy.
Juncos made good early progress from 10th on the grid, two superb passes on the first lap elevating him into the top eight. On lap six though, as he looked to make a move on the run out of Nelson and into the Bomb Hole, contact resulted in damage to his front-left and a luckless retirement duly followed.
Round 12 provided another opportunity for Juncos to shine and he seized the chance brilliantly with a terrific drive from 10th on the grid again – the top 12 qualifiers reversed for the third race. Already up to seventh on lap one with another highly impressive beginning to the encounter, the Safety Car was deployed due to a stranded car and so the action only resumed on lap five.
Immediately pressuring Guinchard, who had converted ninth into sixth on an equally impressive first lap, Juncos passed his team-mate smartly and then grabbed fifth as well. Due to the Safety Car, and a delayed start to the race initially when a car stopped on the formation lap, only seven laps in total were completed – a case of what might have been for Juncos who was only 0.8 seconds shy of the podium.
Daniel Guinchard – GB4 Championship Leader:
“Around here especially we thought it was going to be a really tricky weekend, so to actually extend the championship lead overall was really positive – the team have done a fantastic job. We’ve got to take every opportunity we can get, keeping our nose clean has been such a big part of it this year so I’m glad to have scored some more points.”
Richard Ollerenshaw – Hillspeed Team Principal:
“As a team we haven’t been to Snetterton in two years and haven’t run GB4 there since 2022, nor did we do the pre-season tests back in March, so in fairness the weekend has yielded much more than we expected. We’ve had the pace as a team this weekend, all of the guys dug in and did a fantastic job to get us into the position to be taking podiums and also with Dan taking fastest laps in two races.
“Leandro had some bad luck in qualifying with a lap taken away, he was unaware and backed off to preserve tyres so lost a lap which might have put him second or third, or even pole, for race two. In the races he demonstrated again how well he drives, some very clean overtakes, and there was definitely the potential there for a top five in race two without the contact – he had the pace for the podium.
“Dan has been exceptionally quick, he raced well and although we didn’t quite have the pace in race one he still came away with fastest lap and the podium. We all worked late on Saturday to extract more pace from the cars and achieved that, and in race two it was very close to a win. Silverstone next and we’ve definitely unlocked more performance since we were last there, so looking forward to it.”
Rounds 13, 14 and 15 of the GB4 Championship season will take place across the weekend 2nd/3rd August, where the category will link back up with the GB3 Championship partnered by the BRDC at Northamptonshire’s Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit.
GB4 Championship Driver Standings (after Rd12)
1st Daniel Guinchard, 252pts; 8th Leandro Juncos, 124pts
GB4 Championship Team Standings (after Rd12)
2nd Hillspeed, 376pts
