Motorsport: Chesterfield driver Perez clinches title with race in hand

Chesterfield’s Seb Perez started the motor racing season with champagne as he took a podium place in the season opener of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB at Brands Hatch.
Seb PerezSeb Perez
Seb Perez

In 2018 at the Brands Hatch season finale, Perez had rounded off an amazing debut year in the Porsche Carrera Cup GB, where he celebrated his 19th birthday in style by securing the ProAm title with class 3rd-place in the opening race - his twelfth podium of the season - accruing enough points to clinch the title with a race in hand.

“What an amazing feeling,” said an elated Perez. “It’s such a tough championship and can be very unpredictable, so to be first ProAm and second Rookie in my debut year, well it doesn’t get much better than that!”.

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Now elevated to racing in the Pro category, at this season’s opening races at Brands Hatch Perez qualified 4th on the grid for round 1.

Spending his race dicing over 2nd-place, a great drive nevertheless saw Perez eventually take the flag in 3rd-place and saw him take his first ‘overall’ Porsche Carrera Cup podium place.

“The pace in the car was superb I’m delighted with that, a big result!”, commented Perez with an ear-to-ear grin.

In round 2, Perez was this time locked in a race-long battle over 3rd-place, but eventually had to concede the spot and settled for a 4th-place finish, and gave himself 4th in the Porsche Carrera Cup Pro-category points table.

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Satisfied with his weekend’s performance, “I’m pretty happy at coming away with 3rd and 4th place finishes! Our first weekend with Redline Racing has been a success and we want to carry this momentum on!”

Steven Hunter’s JHR Development’s British Formula 4 team had a miserable time with various ‘niggles’ affecting the Dronfield-based team’s cars at Brands Hatch and, but for one slight consolation, they were glad to leave the circuit.

Round 1 had Californian-racer Carter Williams starting in a very creditable 4th slot, with teammate Josh Skelton in 8th.

However, from the start, Williams tumbled down the order as Skelton held his position and the pair finished the race together, with Williams only 1.5 seconds behind in 9th-place.

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On a slowly drying track Round 2 had the JHR pair starting in the round 1 finishing order of 8th and 9th, with both making decent starts and despite Skelton taking to the grass on lap 1, he was running in 5th and Williams was in 8th.

On lap 15 Skelton suffered a clash that forced him to pit for a new front wing and eventually finished the race 7 laps down, while Williams advancing to a 6th-place finish.

For the weekend’s final race, round 3, Williams would line up from 3rd and Skelton in 8th respectively.

At the start Williams held his place, and two laps later he was setting race fastest laps.

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Sadly, while Skelton initially moved up to 7th, he had to pit for repairs again after being forced off the track, to re-join and finish, stone-last in 12th-place.

However, Williams skilfully resisted Louis Foster’s challenges for his 3rd-place on the tight circuit and although unable to catch the leaders, he held his place from lights-to-flag, to take his maiden British F4 podium in 3rd-place.

“It’s great to get our first podium – definitely a good thing as the prestige of this championship is phenomenal – if you can win in F4 you are considered one of the best junior drivers in the world”.   Said the American delighted at being 5th in the championship, “So coming here and getting a podium is good - I am over the moon right now!”.

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