COUNTY Durham racer Amanda Whitaker returned to England this weekend as newly crowned Champion of the Formula Atlantic Class of the Historic European F2 Championship.

A class win and a second place in rounds 9 and 10 Belgium's Spa-Francorchamps circuit was enough to clinch the championship with two rounds remaining.

Despite it being her first time to the circuit, Amanda grabbed an excellent class pole position during tricky wet conditions on the final lap of qualifying, ahead of German rival and 2005 champion Herman Unold.

In the first race, she kept her head and brought the car home in a safe 2nd place in class behind Unold.

She said: "My setup wasn't ideal for the conditions and I was struggling with understeer, so after a couple of moments on the opening lap, it was best for me to play it safe and collect the points."

The second race was run in dry conditions and Amanda made a terrific start to lead the Atlantic class and even battled for 4th place overall initially, until the higher powered two litre cars blasted past down the main straights. A series of consistently quick laps extended her lead and she won her class by over 30 seconds over Unold, taking fastest lap in the process.

She has achieved seven class wins and three second places in the championship so far this year. Her excellent run is helped by her 100 per-cent finishing record - a testament to the good preparation of the car by Vin Malkie and the Chevron Racing team.

She also heads the points chase in the overall Formula 2 Championship by extending her lead to 22 points over nearest rival Bob Juggins. She hopes to achieve the highest points result of any driver in the Formula 2 championship this year when she races at Dijon in France in two months time.

Her next outing will be at the Oulton Park Gold Cup meeting in a fortnight - in the Derek Bell series, a non-championship event.