George Gamble gets first win of the season in the Porsche Carrera Cup GB at Knockhill

Epperstone’s George Gamble reaped rewards last weekend in the Porsche Carrera Cup GB at Knockhill in Scotland, writes Paul Horton.

Gamble had his best result of the season so far in race two of the weekend where he took a light to flag overall win, adding to his fifth-place finish in race one, in rounds 9 and 10 of the series.

Gamble was back on track after a tough encounter two weeks ago at Croft where he crashed out of the first race.

Gamble was in Scotland early last week. On Wednesday he completed four test sessions that went exceptionally well, taking three second places and a fourth spot for a combined finish in second place.

It looked like Gamble and the Rosland Gold Racing by Century Motorsport team were going to have a tricky weekend. Gamble took ninth place (P8 in Pro class) in qualifying having had a lap disallowed for exceeding track limits and that position would see him start on the 10th row for race one early on Sunday morning. His team-mate Will Burns was seventh.

Gamble had a good start but got hit in an incident with another car, leaving the Porsche in 10th spot with damage. A five-second time penalty was handed out for track limits to him on lap 24.

Gamble produced some excellent driving for the rest of the race, it saw many changing of places between Gamble and Burns, that turned into a cat and mouse chase before Gamble took the flag in ninth (P8 in class) and got the car up to fifth (P4 in class), four seconds short of top spot.

Burns also had a great drive as he worked his way up to seventh (P6 in class).

An optimal part reverse grid resulted in Gamble starting race two first with Burns seventh on the grid. Gamble thrived as he knew he needed to be calm and cool with a further 20 cars to fend off for the next 32 laps.

He got a good getaway and was breaking clear by lap two However, a coming together on lap three between Jackson and Jelly saw yellow flags followed by the safety car for five laps. Gamble warmed the tyres up weaving in and out behind the safety car, his good start blown away by the incident and he needed to do the same again. Concentration was the game, waiting for the safety car’s lights to go out and deciding the right time to take another pop at getting away from the pack behind.

Another great start saw Gamble rebuild the gap straight away. On lap nine, Sid Smith put pressure on Gamble and there was a squabble between them, but it was short-lived, Gamble seeing him off and increasing the lead.

By lap 14 Gamble’s lead was stretching to 0.662 of a second, and he was getting faster, increasing the space on every lap.

With 10 minutes left on the clock and seven laps to go, Gamble had widened the gap to 2.835 seconds off Smith. Gamble was flying and having the race of his life.

With three laps left, he was 3.680 seconds in front and soon extended that to over four seconds with a lap to go.

It was a phenomenal race for Gamble as he took his first outright win of the season in style, from lights out to chequered flag.

Team-mate Burns also drove a confident race to finish seventh (P6 in class).

Gamble said: “I love this track, every time I come up here, I get some wicked results. I’m thrilled to bits with an awesome result

“I was gutted to see the safety car come out after such a great start. I managed a controlled re-start and increased the gap.

“Let’s see if we can do the same at Donington Park in two weeks.”

Gamble remains in third place in the Championship with 61 points, going into the next two rounds at Donington Park on August 24-25.