BLAKE Angliss overcame significant car issues to salvage two top-five finishes in the second round of the British GT Championship.
The Coventry driver narrowly missed out on a podium finish in both races, driving with teammate Revie Lake for Mahiki Racing in a loan car at Oulton Park.
Despite starting both races from the pit lane, Angliss and Lake found themselves in podium contention only to fall just short in the closing stages of both races.
Angliss said: “Considering how the weekend was going, to salvage a couple of top-five finishes and a decent haul of points from the races is pretty great.
“It’s all down to the brilliant efforts of the Mahiki Racing team, who worked so, so hard to get the event back on track for us.
“It had probably been my toughest weekend in the British GT Championship so far. We were absolutely nowhere, watching cars just pull away from us on the straights, and it’s pretty demoralising when there is nothing you can do as a driver to improve it.
“The team did a phenomenal job to change almost everything inside the car, and you instantly felt the improvement when we shook the car down in warm up.
“That gave us some confidence, but we knew we still had a huge mountain to climb starting both races from the pit lane.
“We gave it everything we had though and it was good fun getting to pull off some overtakes and fight our way up the order in both.
“I was trying my hardest to grab third place in the last race but couldn’t quite force them into a mistake to get an opportunity for a move.
“We’ll absolutely take the results we achieved though. We’ve got some points on the board now and we roll into Spa-Francorchamps next determined to get a big result.
“It’s a longer race with lots of points on offer, so let’s see if we can fight our way back up the championship standings.”
Angliss challenged for a podium finish in the opening round of the British GT Championship at Silverstone only for contact from another car to derail his top-three hopes.
And the young driver headed to Oulton Park alongside British GT newcomer Lake in a Mahiki Racing-prepared McLaren Artura GT4.
However, an incident in testing prior to the event meant the team had to loan a different car with a lack of power evident in the new Artura.
The car ran slowest through the speed traps in qualifying which led to the team replacing important components including the engine and gearbox.
This meant the car would start both of the two one-hour sprint races from the pit lane.
Angliss sat behind the wheel at the start of race one and went on the offensive as he gained three positions in the GT4 field before the mid-race pit stop.
And Lake continued the momentum in his stint but slipped to fourth in the closing minutes of the race as the team just missed out on a podium.
Lake then produced another strong stint at the start of race two as the teenager fought his way into the top-10.
Angliss took over for the second half of the race and emerged from the pit stop window in sixth place.
He found himself in fourth owing to issues with other cars and battled with two other cars for the final GT4 podium spot.
However, Angliss had to settle for fifth place despite a valiant effort.
