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AN UNLUCKY NUMBER FOR MACLEOD
11 August, 2007:
British Formula Ford Championship leader Callum MacLeod had his
hopes of another race win snatched from his grasp on the final lap
at Silverstone this afternoon (Saturday).
Nineteen-year-old
MacLeod led all the way from pole position in his Jamun
Racing-prepared Mygale, but on lap 13 of round 13 the Northampton
driver's season-long luck ran out.
As he rounded Abbey
with his eighth win of the season apparently in his pocket, Callum
and backmarker Matthew Payne collided, bringing both men's race to
a premature end.
"They just
misunderstood each other's intentions, I think," said a
delighted Nick Tandy, who had chased MacLeod all the way and into
whose lap the race win fell. "A win's a win and I'm delighted
to be back on the top step of the podium." It was Tandy's
second win of the year.
JTR Ray driver
Tandy and MacLeod were the class of the field throughout the race,
Tandy fighting off an early challenge from James Nash to latch on
to MacLeod's tail. MacLeod lowered the lap record on successive
laps as he fought to get away from his pursuer, but Tandy
responded by lowering it twice more himself before MacLeod finally
managed to gain a breathing space. Going into the final tour
Callum was 2.4 seconds clear and sitting pretty.
Nash was promoted
to second by MacLeod's demise, James having earlier fended off an
attack from Jay Bridger and his Mygale. Bridger started his
relationship with his new team, Fluid, by collecting their first
podium finish of the season.
South African Marc
Murray put in the drive of the race from the back of the grid
after his qualifying times - which would have seen him start
fourth on the grid - were disallowed when his Jamun Mygale was
found to be marginally underweight. In his first race for Jamun
this season, Marc charged up into the top 10 by lap four and made
it to fifth by lap nine.
Glasgow's David
Brown, fresh from an impressive club Formula Ford race victory at
Oulton Park, got the better of an entertaining fight for fifth
which involved Lee Mumford - another driver to switch teams for
Silverstone, to JTR - Linton Stuteley and Steve Roberts, who was
having his first race on his return to the Kevin Mills team.
Eighteen-year-old
Brown battled past Roberts and Stuteley early on in his Mills-run
Van Diemen, and repulsed a mid-race attack from Mumford, to secure
fifth - his best result of the year - with a lap to run.
Mumford finished
sixth, another season best, with Stuteley seventh ahead of
Roberts, Sarah Playfair, Marcus Weller, Roger Orgee, Jamie Jardine
and Iranian novice Kourosh Khani.
Matt Dobson
recovered from an early-race spin to overcome Spain's Marcello
Conchado to take his seventh straight Scholarship Class victory.
Provisional
results
British Formula Ford round 13 (of 25)
Silverstone 11/8/2007. 13 laps / 29.24 miles
1, Nick Tandy, UK/Bedford, JTR, Ray, 18m50.563s
2, James Nash, UK/Newport Pagnell, Mills, Van Diemen, +6.053s
3, Jay Bridger, UK/Tonbridge, Fluid, Mygale, +6.676s
4, Marc Murray, ZA/Sudbury, Jamun, Mygale, +15.503s
5, David Brown, UK/Glasgow, Mills, Van Diemen, +15.851s
6, Lee Mumford, UK/Ascot, JTR, Ray, +16.310s
Scholarship class: Matt Dobson, UK/Colchester/Van Diemen, 19th
+59.225s
Fastest lap: Callum MacLeod, UK/Northampton/Mygale, 1m25.079s /
95.16mph Rec |