Nathan Freke, driving in the Michelin Ginetta GT Supercup races at Donington Park (as part of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship support package) recovered after early issues to finish in 3rd place after a storming drive from the back on the grid, including dicing with his old rival Carl Breeze.

It all looked like it was going to plan as Nathan recorded the fastest time halfway through the qualifying session, and then sat out the remainder to preserve his tyres. Unfortunately 3 hours later his joy was turned into frustration as he lost his fastest lap due to a yellow flag infringement, which meant he was relegated down to 4th place.

The first race of the weekend was on the Saturday afternoon in the glorious Leicestershire sunshine and Nathan was determined to make up places to get where his pace warranted. After a strong start on lap 1 he passed Morgan but on lap 2 disaster struck and he spun out into the gravel after getting slightly off line at McLeans.

This meant that in Race 2 he would start from the back, but he wasn’t even able to make the start as a driveshaft failed and so he retired into the pitlane. Nathan was very despondent as the driveshafts should last much longer and had only done 5 races in 2011.

So onto Race 3 and Nathan was determined to get something out of the day but wanted to make sure that he reached the flag. With his rival Breeze also starting from the back after technical issues in race 2 there was going to be a lot of overtaking to see if they could get onto the podium.

From the start Nathan made up places and had soon overtaken all the older Ginetta G50 cars and was now at the end of the train of the newer Ginetta G55 cars. Some great overtaking moves then allowed Nathan to move up to 4th place (behind Breeze) and then over the last 4 laps these two were battling together, along with Nathan’s teammate Freddie Hetherington. Nathan twice overtook Breeze at McLeans but was repassed but on the last lap Nathan got by again and this time he kept his place and finished in 3rd place behind his teammate Hetherington. Sadly Nathan was demoted to 4th after being judged to have made contact with Breeze when overtaking,

After the race Freke commented “I really enjoyed that battle through the field and I am glad I managed finally to get ahead and get a podium after a troubled weekend up to that point, to have it taken away after the race is very frustrating – I will have to let my racing on the track do my talking. I would like to that my sponsor The Player International and my Century Motorsport team for all their hard work getting a working car ready for race 3. I am looking forward to a slightly less stressful Thruxton weekend in 2 weeks time!”

The Championship now moves onto the high speed Thruxton circuit (Hampshire) with the races on both April 30th & May 1st.

Picture courtesy of Chris Roberts widerviewphoto