Stewart Whyte cruises to Brands Hatch victory

Stewart Whyte cruised to victory for the first time in 2014 as the Super Touring Championship made the most of a small grid at Brands Hatch.

Dropping down to seven cars thanks to the non-starting Mark Hazell, whose BMW 320 had a fuel pump issue before the race, the field paired off at the start of the race, providing action throughout the field.

Whyte held off the fellow Honda Accord of James Dodd in the early stages, with the pair running less than a second apart for the first few laps before Dodd began to fall away from the flying Scotsman.

As the pair of Hondas battled for the lead, Richard Meins was holding off Graeme Dodd’s Nissan Primera while Harry Whale and Mark Smith engaged in a race long battle for GA class honours, running within a second of each other for the entire 20 minute encounter.

At just under the halfway stage the Safety Car was somewhat unexpectedly deployed as all seven cars were still running. It was eventually made clear that the Safety Car had been called for debris on the exit of Clearways, closing the field up for the second half of the race.

From then on it was plain sailing for Whyte as the four ST1 cars split with the Honda leading James Dodd, Graeme Dodd and Meins, who had slipped down to fourth just before the Safety Car had been deployed.

“It’s great to get a win in this car, it’s been a long time coming,” a satisfied Whyte told TouringCarTimes.com. “We’ve had a bit of bad luck earlier in the year but we kept chomping away and it payed off. Hopefully we can make the most of it tomorrow and close the championship up a bit going in to Silverstone in a couple of weeks.”

Despite being a permanent fixture in Whale’s mirrors, Smith could do nothing to get past his team-mate and had to settle for second in class, but gained the extra point for the fastest lap, just 0.004 faster than Whale’s best time.

“That was great fun,” said Whale, who only found out he was racing the car when he arrived at the circuit in the morning. “I spent the first few laps just learning the car as it’s not what I’m used to – I’m more used to modern cars with more technology. These cars are just great, though, and it was a fun dice with my team-mate. I’ll just have to go that bit more to get the fastest lap tomorrow as well!”