RHYS HURD SECURES SECOND SPOT WITH SEASON FINALE VICTORY

Rhys Hurd brought the curtain down on the Vertu MINI CHALLENGE Trophy season with victory in the final race of the campaign at Brands Hatch, allowing him to secure second in the championship standings.

Hurd went into the final race of the year trailing Alfie Garford by three points but was ahead two place behind his rival on the grid – which was headed by Ashley Gregory.

She held top spot when the lights went out as Henry Foote made a demon start from the second row to go around the outside of Luca Marinoni Osborne to bag second place. Behind, Hurd was on a charge and before the end of the opening lap, had moved himself up into third ahead of Garford.

Hurd then wasted little time in getting ahead of Foote and Gregory at Druids when they clashed on the second lap and quickly set about building a lead at the front – aided by the fact that team-mate Luca Marinoni Osborne had settled into second.

Marinoni Osborne retained second until he got caught up in a three-wide moment that included Garford on the start/finish straight, and was then forced to park his car at Druids, which forced officials to throw the red flag.

After the action restarted behind the safety car, Hurd was in control at the front as he took the flag for a victory that ensured he ended the campaign second to newly-crowned champion Alex Keens.

“We’d have been right up there without so many retirements earlier in the year but to end the season in second place is fantastic,” he said. “I knew I needed to finish ahead of Alfie and that if I won, it would be done and I managed to get to the front and build a gap.”

At the time of the restart, Olivier Algieri had managed to fight his way through to second spot but he ran off track at Paddock Hill Bend and dropped down the order to promote a recovering Gregory back into second from Garford and Steven Chandler.

Garford managed to clear Gregory who found herself shuffled down the order as Chandler and Jenson Mason also nipped ahead, with Chandler getting the better of Garford on the final lap of the race to secure second spot, with Mason also overhauling his team-mate for third.

However, Chandler’s move for position on the final lap had seen him overtake Garford when yellow flags were being shown as a result of an off for Paul Manning, which led to him being disqualified – putting Mason and Garford up into second and third spot as a result.

Gregory ended the season with a solid fourth place having beaten Henry Foote to the line by just 0.014s, although Foote would be handed a post-race penalty that dropped him down outside the top ten.

It meant Josh Wilby took fifth from new champion Keens, with Leo Purches, Monroe Rennard, Matt Luff and James Sherrington rounding out the top ten.