HILLSBOROUGH’S Dan Harper hailed his Bronze Cup clean sweep at Hockenheim in Germany as a “brilliant weekend” for the Century Motorsport duo as they moved to the top of the standings.
After Misano in Italy and last Saturday and Sunday’s double-header, they enjoy an 11.5 advantage over the Sky Tempesta Racing-run Ferrari 296 GT3 co-driven by Jonathan Hui and Eddie Cheever.
In both races, the reigning British GT Championship GT3 title holders recovered quickly from a low starting position to carve up the field and lead the support category – and the Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo of perennial rivals Rob Collard and Sandy Mitchell – over the line.
Victory number one came largely thanks to Harper, as he climbed from thirteenth to third in the space of 25 minutes before handing the BMW M4 GT3 to Leung who only had to stroke it home.
The pair doubled up 24 hours later and was arguably even more impressive given how their pace in qualifying was pegged back due to a mechanical issue. That meant lining up on the sixteenth row of the grid but within the space of one lap, Leung climbed to second in class and completed his stint within touching distance of the number ninety seven Rutronik Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R.
A seamless mid-race handover ensured Harper emerged from a busy pit lane in the Bronze lead – a position the Hillsborough driver maintained to win by 3.681 seconds from Collard and Mitchell.
“Wow, what a weekend it has been at Hockenheim,” said Harper, who is back in action once again this weekend, this time at the next round of the Nürburgring Endurance Series with Rowe Racing.
“It has been a brilliant weekend, picking up two Bronze victories. We made good progress through testing and practice at Hockenheim, and then the car really came alive on Saturday and Sunday.
“We had to really fight in both races, which just made the wins even sweeter. I did the hard work in race one and it was Darren’s job to bring it home, and then it was roles reversed for race two.
“It is always great fun racing with Darren and Century Motorsport, and I am incredibly proud of everyone involved for this success. We cannot wait for Magny-Cours next at the end of August.”
Belfast’s Charlie Eastwood was due to compete in the Gold Cup at Hockenheim but a bout of sickness for his Racing Team Turkey team-mate Salih Yoluc forced them to follow proceedings from the sidelines.