Jenson Brickley catapulted up to third in the drivers’ championship after a strong performance in the first race at Misano, with pace good enough to fight for pole position, he turned around a mistake in qualifying into a second place finish on race day, and is now closing on the leading Clairet brothers in the standings.

Brickley launched from third to second at the first corner, passing the wild card entry of Jacopo Cimenes, and then harried race leader Ruben Volt’s Honda in the early stages of the race, before cruising to a safe second place finish, his best result since his victory in Race 2 of the season opener at Portimao two months’ ago.

“I looked at the championship earlier today, and I thought if I can get to fourth at the end of the weekend I’ll be happy,” said Brickley. “After the bad results I’ve had, it’s now about just getting the results in, grab the top fives, as the DNFs really hurt you - I had two (DNFs) at Spa, and then a tough weekend at Hockenheim. I’ve been working really hard on the simulator, and since Valencia in TCR Spain things have turned around. It was good to come here on a high from that.

“At the start of the race, I think I was close to passing Ruben, but I think I may have pushed too hard, and then I had to manage the pace a bit as I knew I was then starting to go backwards. At this track, it’s so hard to overtake, I could probably have tried something at the beginning, but we’ve both moved up in the championship today, so I think to have tried anything would have been silly.”