24.09.07 TURVEY HAS STRONG RACES AT MAGNY-COURS After a difficult weekend at Donington Park, I was determined to get back to the front when the Formula Renault Eurocup visited Magny-Cours this weekend. The mid-season test there had gone well, and with two days of practice there was plenty of time to get up to speed on this challenging layout. Unfortunately all of Thursday was spent trying to find out why the car kept cutting out through left hand turns. After changing many electrical components, the problem was traced to a broken earth wire on the main loom, but although it had cost us a lot of track time, there was still two sessions on Friday when I could run new tyres to prepare for qualifying. But then in the first session the gear linkage broke on my second lap on fresh tyres and I only managed one flying lap before the second session was red-flagged. So considering all the problems experienced during free practice, I felt that ninth on the grid for race one and eleventh for race two was quite good. I had improved by nearly 0.9 seconds from Friday and as ever the times were so close that only one tenth of a second would have moved me up several positions for both races. Just after qualifying a few drops of rain began to fall, and it went on to rain constantly throughout Saturday afternoon. With the track very wet by race one, the officials decided we should start behind the safety car. This was my first race in the wet in the Formula Renault and for the first few laps visibility was very poor but I managed to stay on the track as the water was dispersed. As it became easier to see the corners I attacked the drivers in front and managed to make a couple of good overtaking moves to finish in seventh position. The second race on Sunday morning saw more very tricky conditions, as the track was damp but drying so everyone had to start on slicks. The car seemed to have good grip, and by the end of lap one I was already up to eighth. I kept on making progress and grabbed 4th by the chequered flag. As the winner of both races was a French wild card entry who didn’t score points, I actually took some valuable championship points for sixth and third. This moved me up to fifth in the drivers’ standings, but more importantly I am now only five points from second and in a good position to attack at the last two rounds. Straight after the race I had to catch a train to Paris to get a flight to Italy on Sunday evening, as I have a week’s intensive fitness training before going straight back to Cambridge to start my third year studies. << back to news