Race Reports Archive
Donington Park
Saturday, May 03, 2008 - Sunday, May 04, 2008
Championship Round: 4
The first weekend in May was always going to be bu
Simon was competing at his favourite track for Rounds 7 and 8 of the Ginetta Junior Championship, whilst his father was racing in Belgium in the Renault Clio Championship.
Without the benefit of any pre race testing, but with the confidence of a recent good test at Thruxton, Simon soon qualified within 0.6 seconds of pole position and ended up in tenth place for the first race.
In what proved to be one of his strongest showings of the year (and indeed his career), Simon was soon able to run in third position, all be it very briefly, as he was knocked off by a fellow competitor whilst entering the chicane. This dropped him down to 17th position, altough in an excellent recovery drive he was able to pick up more valuable championship points by finishing in 8th position. Again, his lap times proved encouraging. Clearly beginning to show much of his potential and feeling a good bond with all at Optimum Motorsport, the second half of the season should be quite strong.
However, for Round 8 Simon totally misjudged the start and was given a 10 second penalty for his trouble! In addition, he also spun at Redgate on the first corner and although was able to recover to 15th place, the race was red flaggged early following a nasty accident involving two of the front runners and Ashley Craig. Ashley ended up on his roof and hopefully will be back for the next round at Thruxton.
The team seem to be bonding well and are very much looking forward to the rest of the season, which will hopefully lead to further improvement and consistent top 6 finishes. Thruxton is in two weeks time and Simon goes there with higher than average expectations.
