Princes Risborough racer Geri Nicosia won his first race of the season at Rockingham last weekend to sit third in the championship.

Nicosia, 18, had a titanic battle with leader James Kellett on the final race on Sunday.

After a disappointing weekend, Nicosia went into the weekend’s last battle with renewed optimism.

The winner of both earlier races, Kellett, drew ball eight – meaning he would start eighth and leaving Nicosia second on the grid, and on the front row alongside eighth placed Morgan Quinn.

Nicosia felt sure he could get the better start from the less experienced pole-sitter, and hopefully Quinn would prove hard for the other drivers to pass, this being a great chance for his first podium.

And so it went, a lightning start saw Nicosia already a car length in front of Morgan and able to move across in front and take the lead. There was still the run down to Deane, the first hairpin – Nicosia led and defended the inside line, but 30 cars were barrelling down on the corner as well.

Predictably there was contact, Nicosia took a hit to the rear bumper but managed to get the car round the corner and still in the lead. 

Two corners later he finally started to open up a gap, after a lap he was already over a second clear, and doubled that advantage the following lap.

As expected, Quinn was defending as if his life depended on it, double race winner Kellett finally finding a way past Quinn on lap five – by now Nicosia had a 4.8 second lead in what was scheduled to be a 10 lap race. Now the race was truly on.

Kellett was driving like a man on a mission, and started to close the gap. Nicosia remained calm, watching the gap carefully and pushing no harder than he needed to, in order to conserve tyres for the next round. The gap was coming down slowly, but with one lap to go, Nicosia still had a 2.5 second lead – even slowing up he was able to take his first win of the season by 1.5 seconds.

After five of the 17 races, Nicosia lies third in the championship on 104 points, behind Kellett (163) and Stoney (137).

Nicosia said: “I’m disappointed with how Saturday turned out. But it’s good to get the season moving and we have plenty of time to catch Kellett.”