Abbi Pulling’s stellar start to the new W Series season continued with a sensational second place at Barcelona on Saturday.
Gosberton racer Pulling, who was third and sixth at the opening two rounds in Miami, was only beaten by defending champion Jamie Chadwick at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
The Racing X teenager overtook good friend Alice Powell at the start and made a late charge to catch Chadwick, but was unable to stop the Jenner Racing star making it three wins from as many rounds with seven races left this season.
Pulling told the official W Series website: “I’m proud of myself after bouncing back from Miami and a bit of a poor qualifying.
“I started on the front foot here and big thanks to my team.
“I had good pace, couldn’t quite get Jamie (Chadwick) but it’s still a good result for me.
“I was right behind her on the last lap, and I know what I need to do in the next races to move forward again.”
It was an all-British top three, with Chadwick (1.44.951mins) sitting on pole ahead of Powell by three tenths of a second, with Pulling a further two tenths back.
Teenager Pulling described herself as “over the moon” with her qualifying efforts after losing communications with her engineer during the session due to a headphone issue.
The 19-year-old would have been even happier with her start, as she got off to a flier and managed to get past Click2Drive Bristol Street Motors Racing W Series Team racer Powell around the outside on the exit of turn one.
Chadwick started smoothly, though, and safely led at the end of the first lap.
With a third of the 30-minute plus one lap race gone, the defiant Pulling had cut her lead to less than half a second.
That was extended to a buffer of almost one second again with 15 minutes left, but that was halved by the time the final lap kicked off.
Urged on by her engineer, the South Holland ace just couldn’t force a mistake from Chadwick who kept her cool in the sweltering heat to seal victory.
The results leave Pulling second in the driver standings on 38 points, but she’s 37 points behind Chadwick ahead of round three at Silverstone on the weekend of July 1 and 2.
