Carrington-Yates & Warburton share spoils at Pembrey
Sam Carrington-Yates became the winner of the Gaz Shocks 116 Trophy’s first sprint race with a convincing lights-to-flag victory at Pembrey, but Chris Warburton took the win in the later endurance race thanks to a smartly timed second pit stop.
Starting in pole position, Carrington-Yates was initially shadowed by Louis Woodward before drawing clear to win the 20-minute sprint race by more than seven seconds.
In the closing stages Woodward needed to keep up his pace to be sure of second ahead of the fast-closing Jack Godden who put in a strong recovery drive after losing places when he over-shot the Hatchets hairpin at the start.
The 29-year-old Waitrose van driver spent numerous laps figuring a way past Anthony Seddon, but once he’d made it was then able to get within 1.3 seconds of Woodward by the flag.
Godden’s best lap was the fastest of anyone during the race and established a new record for the 116 Trophy cars around Pembrey.
The scheduled one-and-a-half-hour endurance race was cut to just shy of 80 minutes because of a red flag stoppage after Andrew Woodbine’s car struck the pit wall. This incident had a major bearing on the final result…
Sensing a safety car period or stoppage was imminent, Warburton’s team Forty40 Racing instructed him by radio to make the second of two mandatory 60-second pit stops.
It proved a masterstroke for when the race later re-started he was now effectively a pit stop ahead of his rivals who had still to stop a second time.
All Warburton had to do was reel off the laps and, when aggregate results (before and after the stoppage) were combined, his winning margin in the end was close to a full lap.
Seddon survived a late off-track excursion to take second ahead of Peter Keen in third and Woodward in fourth – these three having battled closely for second position early on in the wake of Carrington-Yates who set the initial pace.
Woodward’s hopes of a top-three finish were dashed by a late stop-go penalty in the pit lane for having made too short a second pit stop after the re-start (59 seconds instead of the required minimum of 60). That was on top of a failed intercom which had prevented his team calling him in, like Warburton, for his second stop just prior to the red flag…
Paul and William Abraham were the highest placed two-driver entry at the end of the 80 minutes in fifth outright ahead of Yates and Mark Sullivan who took sixth in spite of an additional 30-second delay at their pit stop as their handicap for winning the previous race at Oulton Park.
Other notable performances included those of Toby O’Reilly who, during the pit stop shuffling, briefly led only his second ever car race, and Godden who, as in the sprint, again proved rapid before handing over to his father Christopher. O’Reilly eventually finished 12th, the Goddens 15th.
Gaz Shocks 116 Trophy founder Mark Bate said: “It’s the first time we’ve tried a sprint and endurance format and it has been an immediate hit.
“It’s given drivers who are new or usually more in the midfield extra seat time to be more up to speed going into the endurance race.
“As a result it’s made it even more competitive and that has been plain to see by the excellent racing we’ve had up and down the grid.”
Click here to see the full race results
