SAM WELLER SIGNS OFF WITH VICTORY
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Sam Weller brought his time as Vertu Motors MINI CHALLENGE champion to an end with victory in the final race of the 2023 season at Brand Hatch.<\/p>\n
Having returned to the grid for the final meeting of the year as a guest entry, Weller lined up second on the grid for the final race but was unable to get ahead of pole man Nathan Harrison off the start, and would instead drop down to third when he was overhauled by team-mate Sam Smith at the end of the opening lap.<\/p>\n
Smith then hit the front going into Paddock Hill Bend at the start of lap two before Harrison regained the lead going into Druids, with contact amongst the gaggle of cars dicing for position seeing Smith go off into the barriers and into retirement.<\/p>\n
Weller then grabbed the lead from Harrison later in the lap and would edge away at the front as Harrison was forced to contend with ever-increasing pressure from Will Orton.<\/p>\n
Orton would briefly manage to get ahead only for Harrison to fight back immediately and it was the returning former champion who crossed the line in second spot with Orton left to settle for third.<\/p>\n
However, post race there was a change at the front as Harrison was handed a five second penalty for gaining an unfair advantage, which dropped him back to fourth place.<\/p>\n
That in turn promoted Oliver Meadows onto the podium places in third after he benefitted from late issues for Nelson King to cross the line in fourth place before his promotion, with Bradley Gravett and new champion Dan Zelos rounding out the top six.<\/p>\n
Zelos had been forced to come from the back after his issues in race two but showed his pace to come through the pack in impressive fashion, with Lydia Walmsley, Dominic Wheatley and Thomas Jack Lee behind.<\/p>\n
Max Hall rounded out the top ten to cap his debut weekend in the series.<\/p>\n
Despite breaking into the top ten, Wheatley was unable to overhaul Jamie Osborne in the Graduate Cup, with Osborne nursing his car to the finish despite losing his splitter to score the points he needed to take the title.<\/p>\n
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Sam Weller brought his time as Vertu Motors MINI CHALLENGE champion to an end with victory in the final race of the 2023 season at Brand Hatch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":23839,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1462,1465],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-jcw"],"yoast_head":"\n
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