Champion racing driver Mark Sumpter has a fight on his hands to retain his title.

Sumpter, from Five Ashes in East Sussex, won the GTO class in the prestigious Privilege Insurance British GT Championship last year.

It was a tremendous success for the Sussex man but he knows it will be tough to repeat the feat this year.

Sumpter won the first race of the 2001 season at Silverstone and has finished seventh, sixth and fourth in the subsequent meetings.

That set of results has left the 30-year-old in second place in the championship.

Sumpter said: "There is a lot more competition this year. There is a new TVR factory team which is very fast.

"It will be tough this year but our aim is to win it again."

Sumpter won the GTO crown last year in his Paragon Porsche entered 911 GT3R with Mike Jordan as his co-driver.

Jordan has now stepped up to the GT category, so Sumpter has paired up with Shaun Balfe in the team's new Porsche 911 GT3RS.

A good partnership is important in a series where the two drivers swap over around the halfway mark and Sumpter is happy with his new colleague, who is a former Lotus GT driver.

Sumpter said: "He has not driven Porsches or left hand drives before so it has taken him a couple of races to get used to things, but it is going well now."

Sumpter and Balfe are back in action at Croft next weekend and they fellow that with a visit to a new circuit at Rockingham near Corby.

Hailsham driver Rick Lemmon was denied a clear victory in the VSR Challenge at Oulton Park last weekend.

On the same programme as the Touring Cars Championship, Lemmon had a huge lead in the second race before a wheel bearing went and he dropped back to finish third.

In the first race Lemmon had taken second place and he remains third in the championship ahead of the next meeting at Snetterton next month.