Charging Westbrook Preserves Advantage

Reigning Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup champion Richard Westbrook stormed up the field to finish fourth in Sunday’s race in Turkey to maintain a healthy points advantage in the 2007 standings.

The Londoner and his HISAQ Competition Porsche were a lowly ninth on the grid, but Westbrook was on top form on race day. He is now 12 points ahead going into the final two rounds, at Monza and Spa.

The performance was especially strong, bearing in mind that neither Westbrook nor the team had ever visited the Istanbul Park circuit. Many other leading drivers and/or their teams had already raced at the venue, which was previously visited by the Carrera Cup Deutschland.

“It was a tough race,” he said. “We really found the track difficult, particularly on set-up for qualifying. It’s a great circuit, but to be brutally honest we just didn’t get it right in qualifying. Ninth was my worst position for two years, and at this critical stage of the championship that was a little bit disappointing.”

So, Westbrook was caught between the task of staying out of trouble, and making up places. “I needed to make up some ground for the points situation, but for some reason, whenever it’s hot, drivers in the Supercup seem to lose their brains a little bit! That was the case, and I think I lost a couple of places, but to have my car intact after the first lap was a good result.”

Then the work began: “I outbraked three people into Turn 1 on the second lap, in one go!” Richard then picked his way past David Saelens, Christian Menzel and fellow Brit Phil Quaife to be running in sixth place, and began catching multiple Porsche Supercup champion Patrick Huisman.

“I wasn’t in a position to make a move, but for some inexplicable reason Huisman went incredibly slowly into the final corner to defend, and I dinked him in the back and he spun. I spent two hours in the stewards’ office because of that, but they downloaded the data from both cars and agreed there was nothing else I could have done.”

Westbrook made up one more place to fourth by passing Stefan Rosina, but the leading trio were too far ahead to make any further ground. “After qualifying ninth I really would have settled for sixth,” said Richard. “It was a difficult weekend, and we never really hit the sweet spot on set-up, but the team have been so good all year we’re allowed to get it wrong once!”

Next up for Westbrook is the Carrera Cup Deutschland round at the Nurburgring next weekend, followed by the penultimate Supercup round at Monza. “I had a really good race to second at Monza last year, so I’m looking forward to it. But we haven’t tested there, so we know it’s going to be difficult.”

Qualified 9th; finished 4th
1st in championship

Top quality photographs available from www.sutton-images.com/richardwestbrook