CARRERA CUP SEASON TAKES BIG “KNOCK” IN SCOTLAND
Matty’s 2022 season suffered a significant setback at Knockhill at the end of July as a monster start-line crash in the first Porsche Carrera Cup GB race of the meeting saw him lose substantial ground in the championship standings.
Graham had travelled to the scene of his first win in the category keen to repeat that form and build some momentum into his title challenge after an impressive win in the second race at Oulton Park back in June.
Instead, he was left with a wrecked race car and an injured leg whilst his title rivals enhanced their points haul.
The weekend got underway in steady fashion as Matty lapped the 1.2 mile undulating Scottish circuit just a tenth of a second off the fastest times in each section.
The short nature of the circuit invariably leads to a tightly packed field in terms of lap time, but after setting the fastest time earlier in the week at the official pre-event test day, Matty was well prepared for the Saturday afternoon qualifying session.
It a half-hour punctuated by yellow and red flags, the Northumbrian driver had appeared to have put in a sublime lap late in the session as he snatched pole position.
Unfortunately for him and five other drivers, their fastest laps came as a yellow flag was deployed towards the end of the lap, seeing those improvements become null-and-void.
Producing that lap time however gave a massive confidence boost and having enjoyed solid starts all year, Matty was confident of challenging for the win on Sunday morning.
That was however until a mis-timed start resulted in one of the heaviest accidents of this racing career.
Bogging down as the lights went out, the field streamed passed the inert number 16 car as he battled to get the car moving.
Unfortunately, it was at that moment an unsighted Ryan Ratcliffe clipped the rear of the stuttering Redline Racing machine and fired it into the path of the on-rushing Hugo Ellis.
Colliding at over 85-mile per hour the damage to four course was extensive and required a lengthy red-flag period to clear away the debris, whilst the drivers involved were dispatched to the medical centre for checks.
Though minor in nature the injuries saw Matty ruled out of being allowed to race in the day’s second race, though that was academic with his wrecked car well beyond repairing in such a short space of time.
With rounds nine and ten of the season coming up over the weekend of August 13 / 14, the race is now on for driver and team to be ready to compete and get their season back on track.