SNETTERTON
DOMINATOR MALVERN SEALS ALL THREE WINS
ROUNDS 8 & 9,
SNETTERTON 15 MAY 2011: Following on from his victorious start to the weekend at
Snetterton on Saturday, Dunlop MSA Formula Ford Championship of
Great Britain star Scott Malvern added two more outstanding wins
at the Norfolk track today to boost his tally for the year to
seven from nine races.
While Australia's
Geoff Uhrhane held the upper hand after qualifying for JTR, it was
the Duratec-powered Jamun Racing Mygale of Malvern which
thoroughly dominated in race conditions to lift him to within just
four points of Jeroen Slaghekke's championship lead.
In the first of
today's races, round eight, the 22-year-old won by almost three
seconds from Uhrhane while in round nine Malvern's lead was even
more substantial before closing up over the final 2.97 miles due
to a Safety Car finish. The reason for the cautionary conclusion
was an engine fire in Philippe Layac's Enigma which occurred on
the penultimate lap.
"It's
absolutely mega," said Malvern. "When we first came here
testing I knew I liked the new circuit and everything has just
gone right for us again. The car is under me all of the time, I
know what it'll do and that gives you a lot of confidence. Looking
ahead to Brands, I have experience there from last year so we
should definitely be on the front-foot."
Uhrhane was pleased
to chalk up some good points in today's opening encounter after
the disappointment of a wiring problem in round seven, which
resulted in a non-finish, but yet more bad luck fell his way in
round nine with a spin at Riches while defending second place.
In the Scholarship
Class, Cavan Corcoran maintained his unbeaten streak of nine wins
with no other contenders present at Snetterton 300 this weekend.
That said, he impressed in round nine with a tremendous drive to a
career-best sixth overall.
Round 8: As on
Saturday, Uhrhane started from pole position, ahead of Malvern,
Slaghekke, Antti Buri, Nick McBride and Matthew Parry and, as the
lights went out, the Australian did well to hold his advantage at
Riches from the fast-starting Malvern.
Into the infield
though, the order had a shake up with Malvern back to third behind
Slaghekke and into lap two the Dutchman mounted his own challenge
on the JTR car of Uhrhane, but to no avail. However, Slaghekke
moved through at the infield as Uhrhane was dropped to third
behind Malvern.
The top three were
quite well clear of the rest by this point with Parry leading the
next trio ahead of Buri and McBride. In seventh place was American
Neil Alberico, heading Dan de Zille, Philippe Layac and Tristan
Mingay.
Slaghekke tried to
extend his lead at the front as the race reached mid-distance and
with Uhrhane pressuring Malvern for second it played into the
Dutchman's hands for a brief period. Malvern though soon began
punching in fastest lap times and on the fourth tour he moved
ahead following a costly moment for Slaghekke which dropped him to
third.
Into lap five
Malvern's lead was a substantial two seconds and despite Uhrhane
pushing hard and Slaghekke taking fastest lap on the sixth tour,
there was no way back for them as Jamun's dominator cruised to his
sixth win of the year and fifth consecutive success.
In fact Slaghekke
was quite fortunate to finish on the podium in third after a spin
on lap seven at Hamilton. Luckily for him, the leaders were far
enough ahead of the remainder of the pack for it not to be too
much of a concern.
Further behind
there was a lot of position changing during the final couple of
laps and through it all appeared Jerseyman de Zille to cap an
excellent drive from eighth on the grid. He ended the race 1.4
seconds to the good over Parry with McBride sixth, just, by 0.2
seconds from Buri. Jake Cook was close behind too in eighth, ahead
of Philippe Layac and Neil Alberico.
Speaking on his
podium return, Uhrhane commented: "Saturday was so
disappointing, we had an earth wire that had come loose and that's
why the engine just died on me. These little things just don't
seem to be going our way at the moment but hopefully we can sort
them all out and turn things around. Second after yesterday is
great but I'm here to win races so I am disappointed still."
Round 9: Uhrhane
made another good start to the final race of the weekend but it
still wasn't enough to keep Malvern at bay - the Jamun racer
slicing past at the hairpin to take the lead. Behind the front-row
pairing, Finnish runner Antti Buri moved up to third ahead of
Slaghekke but de Zille and Spike Goddard ended their races early
with a collision at Agostini.
This resulted in
the deployment of the Safety Car for a single lap. At the restart
Malvern led Uhrhane, who came under massive pressure from Buri and
Slaghekke. With all three as close as could be into Riches,
something had to give and Uhrhane spun out of the race while
trying to defend his position. The incident also caught up Mingay,
who had nowhere to go.
Back at the front,
Malvern led by a vastly increased margin with Buri having survived
in second and McBride moving up to third. Slaghekke, meanwhile,
dropped to 12th after avoiding Uhrhane's excursion but he fought
back well into an eventual finish of fourth.
With some of the
more prominent championship pacesetters having fallen by the
wayside, or indeed having been pushed down the order, a fantastic
fight for fourth developed between Cook, Parry, Layac and Alberico.
On lap four,
McBride made his move on Buri to get second place at the Esses and
although under big pressure from Buri and then Parry, the
Australian held on well to the runner-up spot.
"I was a
little bit disappointed with the first race today, there was a
first lap incident which bent the rear roll-bar, but I'm pretty
happy with this one," said McBride. "I took my
opportunity when it came, I'm really happy to take second. At the
end of the year every point will count so I'm pleased with
this."
Layac and Cook
fought hard into the closing stages over their top five position
but on the eighth tour the Frenchman's engine caught fire leading
to an immediate retirement exiting Agostini and the appearance of
the Safety Car as the race clock counted down to zero.
Malvern took the
win in unusual style at a very sedate pace from McBride, Buri,
Slaghekke and Jesse Anttila - the Finn having performed strongly
to climb from 13th on the grid. Sixth went to impressive
Scholarship runner Corcoran with Cook having to settle for seventh
ahead of Parry, who lost time with a spin at the Esses on lap
eight. David Ellesley's Juno and Ville Kivinen's Ray completed the
top 10.
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