George Gamble hopes to kick on in his second season of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB Championship
George Gamble hopes to carry on where he left off as he returns to the Porsche Carrera Cup GB Championship for his second season, reports Paul Horton.
The 22-year-old travels to Brands Hatch on Saturday for race one and two of the series, where he will be behind the wheel of a £130,000 Amigos livered and sponsored second generation Porsche 911 GT3.
He said he hopes that the weekend will be as good as his first outing last year, where he won the second race.
Competing in the pro category of the competitive Carrera Cup GB series, Gamble will be joined by Seb Perez, of Chesterfield, who will drive the sister Amigos Racing Porsche.
The duo were team-mates last season and in that time Gamble earned three race wins.
However, the Epperstone driver, who is the older brother of racer Tom Gamble, will race for a new team this year, having joined Stockton-on-Tee-based Redline Racing — Porsche race and rally car specialists.
“After a good season last year and winning the Rookie Championship, I’m really happy to be back on the grid again,” said Gamble.
“I hope to be pushing for more wins this season, as well as challenging for the overall title.
“This year it will be important to be more consistent, bag the points where we can and be there (at the top of the standings) for the end of the year and the championship fight.
“I feel much more confident in my second year, so I think we should be expecting a bit more this year.”
In preparation for the season, Gamble has been testing his Porche at Silverstone, Donington Park, Croft and Brands Hatch, and said he was pleased with the way things are going ahead of Saturday’s race.
“So far so good,” he said. “It seems to be going well.
“The trouble is (in testing) you can’t see where you are because everyone’s playing games.
“There are no testing tyre restrictions, so you don’t really know where you are until the first qualifying.
“We saw what the times were on this day last year and then everything changed for qualifying.
“We won’t really know until that first qualifying session at Brands.”
In the first session at Silverstone, Gamble took some of the fastest times from the 16 cars present, and only 0-107 seconds separated the top three rankings — which team-mate Perez topped.
“This is our third season together and we are good friends,” said Gamble.
“The racing works well. We bounce off each other with data and bring each other on and that’s worked really well.”
The feeling of community and team spirit was realised by Redline Racing Team principal Simon Leonard, who said he was delighted to be working with the duo for the 2019 season.
“We couldn’t be more excited to be working with George Gamble, Seb Perez and Amigos,” said Leonard.
“George and Seb are two of the most promising prospects in the championship and we are delighted to have them as part of the team.”
Further promising test results have seen Gamble pick up the best time at Donington Park, and again, he topped the charts at North Yorkshire’s Croft.
His final outing was at Brands Hatch earlier this week and with just a few days before the season starts, the duo said they were ready to go.
The Championship is run over eight race weekends of 16 rounds.
After the action this weekend at Brands Hatch, its followed by Gamble’s most local round at Donington Park on April 27.
In August, the series supports the FIA World Endurance Championship at England’s most prestigious race track in the form of Silverstone.
The Championship will be part of the support racing to the KwikFit British Touring Car Championship and televised live on ITV4.
Drivers who have progressed from Porsche Carrera Cup GB into the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) include former double-champion Dan Cammish, Sam Tordoff, Tom Oliphant, Ollie Jackson and Tony Gilham.
