After an impressive opening two weekends in the 2017 Simpson Race Products Ginetta Junior Championship, Tom Wood came into the Thruxton just ten points off the championship lead hoping to continue his title assault.

With no Friday practice, it was straight into qualifying where the fastest and second fastest times from each driver would determine starting positions for races one and two respectively.

Overall Tom qualified 10th and 8th which he was understandably not overly happy with, as there was a suspected problem with the car. However, the Thruxton circuit, which is flat for most of the lap, tends to lend itself to overtaking although working through the field can also be extremely difficult.

Clearly fired up Tom got stuck in for race one after an impressive start and was quickly into the top five after just a handful of corners. Racing in front of a crowd, which exceeded 30,000 people, Wood was gaining lots of neutral supporters all cheering for the Scanner Vision backed car.

Unfortunately, Tom’s chances of victory started to slip when his 5th place became a spot that every driver was after, whilst Tom was becoming more concerned about the escaping quartet out front. Eventually the 5th place battle began to catch the leaders and with Tom deep inside the top ten he went for a move with just two laps to go to put himself 6th. But just a few corners later an incident saw Tom off the track and in no position to go any further. It was a real shame as a podium was becoming more and more likely, but it was his first bad result of the season and he’d go again from 8th on the grid in race two.

Another perfect start in race two saw Tom move up to 5th in the space of four corners and Tom was right with the leaders as the first lap was completed. But once again as a lead quartet escaped 5th position seemed like the race win as battles started to rage. Thankfully for Tom 3rd and 4th eventually fell back into the clutches of a battle which contained almost ten cars and a good result was once again on the cards.

The middle phase of the race saw Tom in 8th place and with yellow flags at one of the major overtaking spots he bided his time until pouncing in the final few laps to pick up 6th place at the flag. It wasn’t his ideal result, or perhaps the result he deserved, but it was solid points to add to his tally after that DNF in race one.

What Tom could take away as a huge positive from the weekend is his pace. He set the fastest lap in race one and was just over 0.1 seconds off it in race two. There’s no doubt he’s quick enough to win races this year and sitting 5th in the championship, his title assault is far from over!

Tom Wood “Although my results at Thruxton were disappointing for me, I always look at the positives. I had very good race pace, which gives me a good chance for some great results at the next round in a couple of weeks. I have a great team behind me, who are working hard to help me achieve that longed-for race win.”

The fourth round of the Ginetta Junior Championship takes place at Oulton Park on the 20-21 May.