Radical Cup UK dominator Chris Lulham has closed to within three wins of the Ryan Motorsport Insurance Autosport National Rankings summit after further success at Silverstone last weekend.
However, for all his superiority this year, Lulham did not have things all his own way in Northamptonshire. Former Ginetta Junior racer Ian Aguilera joined the grid and demonstrated his star potential as he kept Lulham honest in the opener before then winning race two. Lulham subsequently returned to form in the finale.
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Those two wins have taken Lulham's 2024 tally so far to 10 victories and sends him up four places on the leaderboard to fifth. However, had he completed a clean sweep, he would now be third.
Lulham is one of a bunch of changes inside the top 10 of the rankings, despite it being a relatively quiet weekend of UK circuit racing.
While Aguilera stole the stage from Lulham, the winning Abba Mercedes took all the GT Cup glory at Silverstone.
Richard Neary and Ian Loggie were super troupers in both of the endurance contests, as well as scoring a sprint success apiece to significantly boost their positions. Neary climbs from 18th to sixth, while Loggie moves from outside the top 50 to 15th.
Results also went according to the formbook over at Kirkistown in Northern Ireland as several category pacesetters added further wins.
Peter Bennett prevailed in both Mini bouts to rise from 17th to eighth, while Jason Smyth was unbeaten in Formula Ford 1600 to gain 11 places to move to ninth and Craig Ewing also triumphed in one of the Modi-5 Cup contests to improve by 12 spots into 24th.
Meanwhile, over at the Oulton Park Gold Cup, a couple of historic single-seater aces also added to their victory totals.
Samuel Harrison enjoyed double Historic FF2000 success to rocket up 19 places to 12th.
Samuel Harrison
Photo by: Mick Walker
That is one position above Andrew Hibberd, who topped both of the Historic F3 contests that were for the Gold Cup itself in his Brabham BT18 after Michael O'Brien's Tecno challenge faltered.
Hibberd also won his class in each of the Formula Junior encounters but there were insufficient starters for those to count - nevertheless, he still charges up the leaderboard from 32nd.
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All car races in UK and Ireland are included except qualification/repechage, consolation and handicap races. No races in other countries.
Class wins are only counted when there are at least six starters in the class, except: when the race is part of a multi-stage event where six or more have taken part in earlier heats that feed into a semi-final or final; when multiple championships are merged in the same race, the ‘overall’ winner from the slower championship can count a class win as long as that championship has at least 10 starters across all classes. Only classes divided by car characteristics are included, not those divided by driver characteristics such as ability, professional status, age, experience (for example rookie or Pro-Am classes). Each race counts only once, so an overall winner’s class win is not added.
Where there is a tie, overall wins take precedence. Where there is still a tie, average grid size for a driver’s wins determines the order.
Source: Autosport