The Civic Cup – Rounds 7 & 8
Pembrey – 20th & 21st June 2026

 

First wins of the season for both Dave Marshall and Alistair Camp blew the Civic Cup championship chase wide open in a close-fought double-header at Pembrey (20-21 June).

Incredibly, just 15 points now cover the top six in the title race ahead of next month’s races at Snetterton (11-12 July).

Qualifying

Wilf Butler put his Ben Sharpe Racing-run Honda Civic Type R EP3 on pole position, earning a vital six points from qualifying for the second event running. His early marker stood up throughout the session, but only just – Jake Hewlett’s Mill Street Motors car was just 0.004 seconds slower.

Dave Marshall was best of the runners in the FN2 model. The DMR with KA Car Spares car was one of the few to improve in the second half of the session and ended up just a tenth of a second shy of the pace in third overall. Josh Bromley’s Bromley Motorsport EP3 was next, just a couple of hundredths further back.

In a typically close session, the next three cars were split by only 0.007s as all of the top seven were covered by less than two tenths. It was Sean McGovern’s Area Motorsport car in fifth, just ahead of BSR duo Spencer Stevenson and Aidan Mitchell, who – incredibly – set identical times.

Alistair Camp (Area Motorsport), Louis Austin (Austin Autosport) and Daniel Petters (Team Petters Racing) completed the top 10.

Points leader heading into the weekend, Motion Motorsport’s Matt Wilkins could only manage 14th as he lugged around maximum ballast.

PEMBREY QUALIFYING RESULT

Round 7 – Race Report

Butler and Hewlett both made good starts from the front row of the grid but it was Hewlett who made it to Hatchets hairpin first to take the lead. Butler slotted into second, ahead of Marshall, Bromley and McGovern.

The leading trio set a searing pace out front, leaving Bromley to get increasingly isolated in fourth as much of the action took place in the lower half of the top 10.

Daniel Petters was making the most progress. Having started 10th on the grid, he jumped ahead of Austin and Mitchell then looked to take advantage of the battles going on ahead. As Stevenson pressured McGovern for fifth, Camp sniffed an opportunity but that only succeeded in opening the door for Petters to snatch seventh into the hairpin just after one-third distance.

Petters then passed Stevenson to take sixth before diving past McGovern into the hairpin to grab fifth.

Out front, Hewlett could not shake off the attentions of teen sensation Butler as the lead gap hovered around the 0.5s mark. But Butler was also flat out as he clung on, his tyres losing grip in the rising temperatures. Just behind, Marshall was also keeping the pair in sight but similarly unable to make a challenge.

Hewlett crossed the line, shadowed by Butler, for what appeared to be his third maximum score (one coming behind a non-scoring guest) of the season. But there was to be a twist in the tail: both Hewlett and Butler were adjudged to have been out of position at the start and were handed 10s jump-start penalties, dropping them off the podium.

So Marshall inherited his first win for 13 months, delighted to have put a recent run of bad luck behind him. Bromley was nearly 4s back in what became second position, matching his best-ever result. Perhaps more significantly, it was the former MG man’s first podium achieved without the assistance of a reversed-grid.

Petters was hunting Bromley down but remained just over a second back at the chequered flag as he racked up another podium in a strong run of results for the East Anglian racer.

Hewlett’s strong pace meant that the 10s penalty dropped him only to fourth. Petters’ younger brother Jamie was fifth after a similarly impressive climb, picking his way forward from row eight of the grid. Butler’s penalty dropped him to sixth, losing out by just 0.017s to the younger Petters. Some consolation came in the form of heading the Paul Winfield Trophy section for rookies and less experienced drivers.

Stevenson was seventh ahead of his BSR team-mates Mitchell and Charlie Constable (up from 18th on the grid), who both passed Camp in the second half of the race. Camp still managed to hold on to the all-important 10th – and, therefore, pole position for Sunday’s race – just ahead of Mitchell.

Camp could be grateful for other’s travails, notably McGovern and Austin. The Irishman badly lost pace as the race wore on, dropping to 12th at the flag. Austin was 13th after locking up and going onto the grass at Brooklands while running eighth.

A subdued Wilkins and Wesley Swain (Area Motorsport) rounded out the points-paying positions.

PEMBREY RACE ONE RESULT

Round 8 – Race Report

Camp converted pole position into the race lead in Sunday’s reversed-grid encounter. Constable initially held second from the fast-starting Mitchell but Stevenson pounced to pass both in a fine move at Brooklands on the opening tour.

Camp was looking to make an early break with a lead of more than a second after the first 1.46-mile lap at the south Wales airfield venue. But an incident further back led to the race being neutralised with a safety car; as Jake Renshaw peeled into the pits with a broken driveshaft, both Ben Bateman and Anthony Gannon were caught out and sent into spins at the final Honda corner.

The race restarted with eight minutes left on the clock. This time Camp was unable to break away and faced pressure from Stevenson throughout, the gap concertinaing slightly with the differing strengths of the FN2 and EP3 on different parts of the circuit.

Stevenson had a couple of looks into the Hatchets hairpin but was unable to mount a genuine passing attempt as 2021 champion Camp held on to take his first win in almost exactly a year. Camp became Civic Cup’s eighth winner from eight races so far this year, underlying the unrivalled competitiveness of the championship. It also means he remains a genuine championship contender, fourth in the standings and just seven points off the summit, after ending a run of four races without a top-six finish.

Stevenson, still chasing his first victory, could nevertheless be happy with a second, a result that lifts him to second in the championship table, only four points behind the leader.

Behind the lead pair, Mitchell passed Constable for third and was delighted to secure his maiden Civic Cup podium. It came with the added bonus of taking the honours in the Paul Winfield Trophy section.

Butler also passed Constable and set fastest lap en route to fourth. Fifth was Hewlett who got a run on the unfortunate Constable when the latter took to the grass to avoid debris. The result lifts Hewlett into the championship lead. But with the top six covered by just 15 points – the equivalent of an eighth-place finish – and less than half the season complete, there is still a long way to go.

Constable was dealt another blow when he became the latest driver to be hit with a 10s jump-start penalty. And with the safety car intervention meaning there were fewer racing laps to spread the field, it dropped him all the way to 13th in the classification.

First to benefit was Bromley, who could be well satisfied with sixth position given the 30kg of success ballast he was carrying. Swain impressed with a charge to seventh from 15th on the grid, ahead of Jamie Petters.

Saturday’s winner Marshall was down in ninth. Not only was the north-easterner having to carry 40kg aboard his FN2, he also suffered a grassy excursion at Honda, along with Daniel Petters, soon after the restart. Having dropped well outside the top 10, Marshall did well to recover as far as he did.

Louis Austin was 10th ahead of Matt Wilkins, who made up a couple of places but will be ruing a tough weekend in which his healthy points lead was wiped out. But he remains well in contention, third in the points.

McGovern was classified 12th ahead of the penalised Constable, with Freddie Ingram securing a maiden points finish in 14th and Daniel Petters 15th.

Local hero Will Butt had run in 15th for much of the race, but ended up agonisingly missing out in 16th.

In the Goodyear Diamond Award, for drivers aged 40 and over, defending champion Mark Hughes made it two from two over the weekend.

PEMBREY RACE TWO RESULT

CHAMPIONSHIP POSITIONS AFTER PEMBREY RESULT

Driver Quotes

Round 7 winner, Dave Marshall

“The car is back working where it belongs. The first weekend after [overcoming mechanical issues], we’re on [the top step of] the podium.”

Round 8 winner, Alistair Camp

“It’s been a long time. It’s just been tough. We said we’d got to convert this to keep the championship alive for ourselves.”

Next time – Snetterton awaits as the heatwave continues