Richardson Racing stormed to a fourth victory of the Protyre Motorsport Ginetta GT5 Challenge season after another strong weekend on track at Knockhill.
The Corby-based team headed for Scotland for the latest rounds of the year buoyed by a stunning double win at Oulton Park a week earlier, which had allowed rising star Josh Malin to move up to third in the standings.
Despite his lack of experience of the challenging venue overlooking the Firth of Forth, Josh was right on the pace throughout testing in the lead up to the event, although qualifying wouldn’t go to plan as he ended up fifth on the grid.
Having been late joining the session due to a technical issue on the car that the team worked quickly to resolve, Josh found himself hampered by a red flag that prevented him from improving on his first banker lap – leaving him with work to do when the first race kicked off.
Making up a place on the opening lap, Josh then spent the entire race embroiled in a four-way fight for victory with James Taylor, Jonny Wilkinson and Gordie Mutch – eventually taking the flag in fourth place and missing out on the podium by just half a second.
Moving up a spot to fourth when race two kicked off live on ITV2, Josh’s hopes of early progress into the podium places was halted by a safety car period, but he was soon on a move when the action got underway.
A fine move on the run to the hairpin allowed him to get ahead of both Wilkinson and Mutch, and a lap later, Taylor was slightly slow out of Clark’s which allowed Josh to get a run on the back straight and storm into the lead on the run to the hairpin.
The fight for third allowed Josh and Taylor to break away at the front before the safety car was called out for a second time to recover a car from the gravel at Clark’s.
Racing resumed with less than three minutes left to run, with Josh retaining his lead only to come under pressure from Taylor at Clark’s.
Taylor managed to get ahead only for Josh to cut back under his rival onto the back straight and immediately reclaim the lead on the run to the hairpin.
With Taylor then under pressure from behind for second, Josh was able to edge away at the front and duly wrapped up his fourth victory of the campaign.
“After a tricky qualifying session, it was a case of trying to make up places in the races,” he said. “Race one didn’t quite go how I would have liked it to go as I hoped to be higher, but it was solid points on the board and then race two was just great.
“It was a fantastic race and I really enjoyed it. I certainly didn’t expect to take a win from fifth on the grid as it is really difficult to overtake here, and when I got the front I had to defend for my life towards the end as the tyres were going away from me.
“I was strong under braking into the final corner which helped and I had to position my car in the right place lap after lap; credit to the other guys for such a clean fight.
“Fourth and first this weekend means we’ve got some good points on the board and now have to carry this forwards.”