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With
no opportunity to test we knew that taking Niall
to Croft would be very difficult, however we relished
the challenge and decided to go anyway.
Friday
testing was cut short caused by a slipping clutch
in the morning and was punctuated by rain and cold
conditions in the afternoon.
Qualifying
did not go well; we struggled for rear tyre grip
and felt very disappointed in our back of the grid
slot for race one. The second qualifying session
was better but was punctuated by a spin from Niall
leaving him beached on the kerb at Sunny. At the
restart there was another spinning car and the session
was halted early leaving us further up the grid
but in no position to challenge in race two.
Race
day started with grey skies and heavy rain, however
at the time of the first race the track was still
wet but the rain had stopped. Tyre choice was crucial
and we got it wrong; used wet tyres were selected
as the track appeared to be drying but it failed
to dry sufficiently for the tyre choice to work
in our favour. The better option would have been
the new wets which were in the pitlane just sitting
there, glaring at us for not being used. At one
point we were up to 3rd place but the following
cars caught us as the tyres went off so 6th place
at the finish was not a good result and we were
not too competitive when lap times were reviewed
after the race. We were still struggling for grip
at the rear of the car and had no real solution
to hand.
Race
two was an opportunity to try something different
and we made very significant changes to the car
to resolve the grip issues. However this was all
in vain as Niall appeared to get a very bad start
and entered the first corner in last place on the
road. His skills and determination saw him make
up 6 places in the following two corners and he
came out of the chicane in 3rd place once again.
Our elation was short lived as he locked up all
four wheels at the braking zone into Tower and lost
time on the International Class car of Oliver Oakes
just ahead of him. We were to be disappointed once
again as the race entered the sequence of corners
approaching the furthest away point on the circuit.
Waved yellow flags and the ambulances switching
on their blue flashing lights is never a good sign
and we were sad to see that Niall's car failed to
come round to the start finish line and we feared
the worst. Very quickly the race was stopped and
ambulances, doctors cars and rescue vehicles raced
to the scene of an accident. We now know that it
was not just Niall, in fact he was just one of 7
cars that were out of the race. It appears that
Perez and Ericcson touched and the latter went onto
the grass, rejoining the track to cause a chain
reaction with Niall at the end of it. Niall had
been very close to Oliver Oakes' car and glanced
in his mirror to see how close the following car
was behind and as he looked back in front Oliver
had virtually stopped, he hit him at 110mph as recorded
on the data having braked from 141mph.
Niall's
car went under the back of Oliver's car and then
spun out on to the grass hitting the tyre barrier
at 90mph, the two impacts caused severe damage to
the car and left it looking in a very sorry state
- there are pictures of this on the website. We
were very sorry to hear that one of the cars involved
in the crash had hit a marshal who sustained a double
fracture of his leg; we extend our best wishes to
him for a speedy recovery.
Niall
damaged his hand and was shaken up by the incident
but reported that up to that point the car had felt
very fast and he was looking forward to a good race
with a positive outcome.
We are looking forward to completing the repairs
and hope to do our first test this season with Niall
at Rockingham Motor speedway next week and then
racing at Monza two weeks later.
'It was not quite the weekend we had hoped for,
but some positive outcomes leave us optimistic for
the future. Niall is joint 5th in the Championship
and there is a lot of racing to come with 9 events
and 18 races remaining.' commented Team owner Trevor
Powell.
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