Tough time for Tom Lebbon at Silverstone

Rising star Tom Lebbon endured a weekend of mixed emotions as the GB3 Championship headed for Silverstone for the latest round of the season.

The Elite Motorsport driver was right on the pace in pre-event testing around the full Grand Prix layout at the Northamptonshire circuit and ran inside the top three on the combined times during four sessions on Thursday.

The talented teenager then went one better on Friday to end up with the second best time on the combined results – just 0.017s down on pacesetter Sebastian Alvarez – leaving confidence high going into the race weekend itself.

Qualifying would be held in tricky damp conditions and ended with Tom setting the eighth best time, although he would start the opening race of the weekend from seventh on the grid as a result of a grid penalty for Alvarez.

Despite being forced to pit during an early safety car period and dropping to the rear of the field, Ton battled his way back through the pack in impressive fashion to cross the line in ninth place, although there would be disappointment post race when he was then handed a time penalty for contact that dropped him back down to 14th.

From ninth on the grid for the second race, Tom quickly moved his way up into seventh spot and held the place right through to the final lap, when contact from Alvarez saw him drop back down to 15th place.

Alvarez would later be handed a time penalty that promoted Tom up a position and he went into the final race seeking to try and end the weekend on a high from seventh on the grid.

This time around, Tom found himself slipping down the order on lap one as he dropped to tenth but was soon making up ground before a chaotic fifth lap saw a number of his rivals clash – promoting the #34 car up into seventh spot.

Moving past Bryce Aron into sixth, Tom would hold his position through to the finish but would later be promoted up into fifth when Branden Lee Oxley was excluded from the result.

Tom ends the weekend sitting ninth in the championship standings, with the series next heading to Oulton Park later this month.

"It’s a weekend where we showed a lot of promise, even if that hasn’t been reflected in the final results," he said. "Our pace in practice before the weekend was really strong, so it was disappointing to qualify where we did, although I know that the weather played a role in that.

"On track incidents limited what was possible from the first two races and we didn’t get the kind of result that we were capable of, but we managed to salvage a solid finish from race three to make sure we leave Silverstone on good terms.

"Hopefully things will go more to plan at Oulton Park next month and we can return to the kind of form we showed at Spa and Silverstone."

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