Crawley teenager Charlie Hand makes it four wins from six

In the first race he was chasing Scott Symons for the class lead and after going into Becketts side by side on the second lap, he emerged onto the straight with his Renault Clio’s nose ahead.

As well as leading his class, he was making progress overall and from 10th he was into ninth after four laps, but Symons was closing again too.

It was close at the bottom end of the top 10, with Hand mixing it with some quicker cars, and for a while was embroiled in a four-car battle for eighth.

Symons was an early pit stopper, whereas Hand stayed out for an extra couple of laps, which was to his advantage.

Rejoining sixth overall, he had managed to gain a lap on Symons who was still in second. Over the final laps he not only consolidated his fourth class win but secured a magnificent fifth overall.

“I had a good start and tried to pull away, but had a great scrap with the VW Golf’s.

"I did anticipate the safety car, as I thought someone could go off in the slippery conditions,” said the Crawley teenager. It was another good start in the second race, straight into the class lead and ninth overall.

The Westbourne Clio of team-mates Jack Meakin/James Black were the closest rivals in this race (with a 10 second Pitstop advantage) and once again Hand was a late stopper and eventually came in after 25 laps as the overall leader too!!

Having rejoined third in class, he quickly recovered second and began to close in on Black’s class lead. The gap came down and down but time was running out, and both had to negotiate backmarkers, which tended to go in Black’s favour.

“I had a 15 seconds success penalty, so it allowed James to build a gap,” he explained.

With the gap to Black coming down and down with Hand being 0.5 sec a lap quicker, he was virtually poised to challenge for the class lead again over the final laps, as well as looking out for Symons who had closed on them both.

“Within three laps I had caught him and we were side by side into Brooklands, but two other cars were battling for their race too. Then a Ginetta G40 turned into me on the straight, I was delayed and James got away again,” he added.

As they headed into the Luffield Complex for the final time Black just did enough to take the win, leaving Hand to settle for second on this occasion. “I had the pace to win, but that bit of contact cost me, after I made up 10 secs on him,” he concluded.