Local racer Jake Archer picks up the points in the start of the season
Two eight place finishes saw Archer start the 2020 British GP2 Cup season with a solid haul of points.
Andover’s Jake Archer competed in the first round of the British Superbikes Moto2 support category last weekend. The delayed season got underway at Donington Park using the national circuit.
During the 25-minute qualifying session on Saturday morning Archer was running well early on. He came into the pits and returned to the circuit with around 7 minutes remaining. He clocked a best time of 1:10.353 which meant he would start from 25 th on the grid and 10 th in the Moto2 class.
Race One
The 20-lap race took place in the bright sunshine at the Leicestershire circuit on Saturday afternoon. Archer got away well making up 5 places on the first lap moving up to ninth in the GP2 class. He battled with fellow GP2 riders Horsman early on and then Dutch rider Jorel Boerboom later in the race. He went on to cross the line in 8 th place at the flag.
Race Two
For race two the team had made some adjustments to the bike to try and aid cornering and further improve on the times set in race one. Archer started from 22 nd on the grid.
The changes worked as Archer set his fastest lap of the weekend beating his qualifying time by half a second with a 1:10.145. Archer spent most of the race chasing down number 72 Cameron Horsman. With his new found pace, he finally caught him and overtook him on lap 18. Archer then went on to open a gap of more than 1.5 seconds as he took another 8th place in the British GP2 Cup at the flag.
Archer has 16 points in the series from the opening round. The next round of the British GP2 Cup is at Snetterton on the weekend of 21 st to 23 rd August.
Jake Archer said,” It was a good start to the year and we made solid progress over the weekend. In race two I had more confidence with the bike and we set our best lap time. Thank you to Kovara Projects for their continued support and also to Ryan Saxelby for preparing the bike.”
Report from Jeremy Ryan
Images courtesy of Kerry Rawson
