Silverstone is proving to be lucky turf for Ayhancan Güven. In 2019, the young Turkish driver celebrated his very first victory in the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup. He repeated the feat a year later, on the 70th Grand Prix Anniversary of Formula 1.
Having secured pole position in the qualifiers the day before, Güven went on to win the fifth race of the 2020 Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup season on Sunday, 9 August.
The contest saw an exciting duel between Güven and Dutch driver Larry ten Voorde that lasted nearly the entire 13-lap race distance.
“Initially, I kept making the same mistake every lap, always in the Maggotts-Becketts corner combination,” Güven admitted. “Luckily, I managed to fend off all of Larry’s attacks. Once I finally got Maggotts-Becketts sorted halfway through the race, it was easy.”
The win on Sunday helped Güven make-up ground against the top two drivers in the league – Luxembourg’s Dylan Pereira and ten Voorde, with three races to go until the end of the season.
Güven’s performance was in stark contrast to his experience on the same track the previous week, when he could only manage 8th place due to technical issues with his car.
The 22-year-old driver from Istanbul dedicated his first victory of the season to his mechanics. “We’ve improved with the car set-up from race to race. We have to keep working in this direction.”
Sunday’s runner-up ten Voorde paid tribute to the winner: “I think I would’ve been a little faster than Ayhancan, but he drove an almost flawless race and I had no real chance to overtake him.”
There was drama early in the race, when several drivers clashed in a chicane on the first lap. The safety car was out after the cars of Jordan Love (Australia/Fach Auto Tech) and Moritz Sager (Austria/Dinamic Motorsport) were badly damaged, signalling an early end to the race for the pair after just a few hundred metres.
The Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup teams now travel to Barcelona to contest round six this weekend, as part of the Spanish Grand Prix.
Results round 5 Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup, Silverstone (GB), 13 laps, 09 Aug. 2020
- Ayhancan Güven (Turkey/Martinet by Alméras), 28:57.721 minutes
- Larry ten Voorde (The Netherlands/Team GP Elite), + 0.753 seconds
- Dylan Pereira (Luxembourg/BWT Lechner Racing), + 1.135 seconds
- Max van Splunteren (The Netherlands /Team GP Elite), + 5.569 seconds
- Jean-B. Simmenauer (France/Lechner Racing Middle East), + 5.911 seconds 6. Marvin Klein (France/Martinet by Alméras), + 8.958 seconds
Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup 2020, standings after 5 of 8 races
- Dylan Pereira (L/BWT Lechner Racing), 97 points
- Larry ten Voorde (NL/Team GP Elite), 93 points
- Ayhancan Güven (TR/Martinet by Alméras), 80 points
- Jaxon Evans (NZ/BWT Lechner Racing), 62 points
- Florian Latorre (F/CLRT), 54 points
- Marvin Klein (F/Martinet by Alméras), 52 points
