BIRTHDAY VICTORY
AT SILVERSTONE FOR AUSSIE GEOFF
ROUND 3,
SILVERSTONE 10 APRIL 2011:
The third round of the championship and the final race of the
Silverstone weekend produced the third different winner: Geoff
Uhrhane, who collected his 20th birthday present a day early and
led home a JTR team 1-2 by the biggest margin of the weekend, all
of 1.98 seconds. Second place went to Dan de Zille, with third for
Jamun's Jeroen Slaghekke to cement his championship points lead.
The Australian's
Mygale led all the way from pole position, and set fastest lap
along the way, but was fortunate even to make it to the finish
line after a frightening first-lap incident between himself and
Scott Malvern's Jamun car. The collision came on the Wellington
Straight as Malvern pursued the leader down to Brooklands, and it
saw the Jamun car flying over the JTR machine's rear wheel, then
spin in front of the pack. Further collision was avoided by a
hard-braking Uhrhane and the rest of the field, but Malvern's race
was run.
Barely delayed by
the incident, Uhrhane carried on in the lead with a car apparently
undamaged, heading at first Slaghekke and then de Zille. Jeroen
kept the gap at less than a second but de Zille lost time in
passing the Dutch driver on lap 13 and Uhrhane took the
opportunity to make good his escape. "The first lap was a bit
interesting," said Geoff, "but after that things settled
down. Big thanks to everyone at JTR for all their hard work and
for getting me over from Australia to drive their car. It's been a
great weekend."
Jersey-based de
Zille was pleased with another second-place finish but
disappointed not to have been able to get on terms with his
team-mate a bit earlier. "I lost too much time fending off
the cars behind and then by the time I was up to second he was too
far away to catch," he said.
With a pole
position, a new lap record, a win, a third place and the
championship lead to show for his weekend's work, Slaghekke was
delighted: "Obviously I am very pleased with the way it's
gone, and I'm quite pleased with third place in this race, but I
had a bit of a problem towards the end which cost me some
time."
As ever with a
Formula Ford race on the Silverstone National circuit, there were
five or six cars in contention for victory throughout. Nick
McBride brought his Jamun Mygale home fourth, having lost the
position to Antti Buri for a lap before winning it back when the
Finn ran wide through Brooklands. The Finn hung on for fifth,
ahead of Luke Williams's Mygale, which was a car transformed after
his family team solved the braking issues which had plagued his
earlier races.
Spike Goddard made
it three Aussies in the top seven, ahead of Matt Parry's Van
Diemen, the Ray of Neil Alberico and the JTR Mygale of Tristan
Mingay, which lost sixth place five laps from home after a clash
with another car.
Only 13 finished
the race, car damage accounting for several of the retirees,
including the Rays of Jonny McMullan and Jesse Anttila.
There were all
sorts of dramas in the Scholarship class: Cavan Corcoran was late
off the grid for the green flag lap but took the start from his
original grid slot rather than the tail-end, for which he was
penalised with a drive-through penalty. The lost time mattered not
to the Derbyshire driver, however, for his only class rival still
running by this time was David Moore, who had missed the start
altogether due to late-running repairs and was five laps adrift.
Corcoran thus won the class for the third race in succession,
saying: "It's a great result because I had so little testing
and I'm still learning about the car."
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