24.09.07 TOUGH WEEKEND AT DONINGTON I had high hopes for the Formula Renault Eurocup’s visit to Donington Park. I had good memories of winning there in Formula BMW, and having started the weekend third in the championship I was determined to move closer to the leader on home ground, especially as there was such a great atmosphere at Donington with thousands of people on hand for the World Series by Renault races. During the long break between Eurocup rounds I had kept busy working hard on my fitness as well as competing in the Porsche Carrera Cup guest car at Brands Hatch. I felt I adapted well to the very different Porsche and qualified sixth, only 0.2 sec from pole position. In the races I kept the same pace as the leaders and finished sixth and fourth. My return to Formula Renault at Donington started quite promisingly with fifth place in free practice, but then qualifying was terrible for the whole team and we could only manage 18th for both races. The car balance seemed to be fine, but we lacked grip and also hadn’t made best use of the second set of new tyres. The race is always going to be hard when you’re starting so far back but I’ve had some great drives through the field this year so was optimistic I could move forward and score points. Both races were very chaotic. In the first one I made up three places on the outside of the Craner Curves, then on lap two another competitor’s detached front wing landed in front of me, lifted my car up and sent me onto the grass, meaning I lost the positions I had gained. A great start in race two earned me four positions, but then an accident brought the safety car out so everyone slowed coming onto the pit straight. Unfortunately my young team mate didn’t, driving right into the back of my car, causing some damage. The race was then red flagged, and the team did a good job to effect rapid repairs so I could take the restart. I managed to avoid a gaggle of spinning cars in the Craners – an incident that caused a second red flag and meant the restarted race was both shortened and started behind the safety car. In the end, I was fortunate to finish the race making it up to 12th position. It was an extremely disappointing weekend, but I will just have to learn from it, put the result out of my mind and fight even harder than before at Magny-Cours in two weeks’ time. We’re only halfway through the season and I’m just eight points from second in the championship, so there’s still plenty to race for. << back to news