JAMUN RACING
LOCKS OUT THE ZOLDER PODIUM
16 JULY 2011:
Scott Malvern made most of his pole position and took a
start-to-finish victory in the first race of the Formula Ford
EuroCup at Zolder. Behind him his Jamun Racing team-mates,
Dutchman Jeroen Slaghekke and Australian Nick McBride, fought a
hard battle for the final podium places. Finland's Anti Buri,
driving a GEVA Mygale, was disappointed with his fourth place but
was still top finisher for the Dutch championship.
With this weekend
counting both for the EuroCup and for the Dutch Championship,
there were 25 cars on the grid at Belgium's former Grand Prix
venue. With the track notorious for being a difficult circuit on
which to pass, Malvern was very happy with his victory, but had to
admit that he was pleased to see the chequered flag after 12 laps.
"Slaghekke was certainly faster than me in the last part of
the race and if the race had been longer, I might have had
difficulty keeping him at bay," said the leader of the Dunlop
MSA Formula Ford Championship of Great Britain.
The Dutchman
confirmed Malvern's comments: "I needed a couple more laps,
but passing Scott would have been difficult on this track. I was
able to close up on to his gearbox a few times, but passing a back
marker in final part of the race ruined my chances to challenge
for the win."
Australian Nick
McBride was disappointed with finishing third after an excellent
qualifying in his Jamun Mygale to start from the front row. He was
able to hold position in the early part of the race and to keep
Slaghekke at bay, but an unexpected move by Jeroen in turn one
caught him off guard. "I didn't see that one coming and after
he passed me we had to work together to keep up with Scott. I was
waiting for one of them to make a mistake, but neither did; anyway
I'm happy with this great result for the team".
Less happy was the
winner of one of last weekend's Spa-Francorchamps races,
Australia's Geoff Uhrhane in the JTR Mygale. His weekend started
well with fifth on the grid, but a broken gearbox casing robbed
him of a potential podium finish. "We certainly had the pace
to keep up with the Jamun cars, I'm sure a podium finish was
possible, but after six laps I lost the gearbox. We will try again
tomorrow."
Another driver to
qualify well but who had less luck in the race was Matthew Parry
in the Fluid Motorsport Van Diemen. The new LA11, which he gave
its debut at Spa last week, again showed great pace; a strong
sixth on the grid showed the potential of the pairing. But a poor
start saw the Air Asia/Team Lotus development driver drop down the
order, where he battled hard with Cliff Dempsey Racing's American
driver Neil Alberico in the Ray and Jersey's Dan de Zille in his
JTR/Mygale. A flying stone on the last lap damaged the Van
Diemen's gearbox and Parry joined the list of non-finishers.
Buri, in the GEVA
Racing Mygale, was the fastest of the Dutch Championship runners
and took fourth overall ahead of series
leader Joey van Splunteren driving a Provily Racing Mygale. Spike
Goddard got ahead of van Splunteren for three laps but was beaten
back to sixth two laps from the end. Local
ace John Svensson in his self-run Van Diemen was 14th after being
spun around at the start.
The second race,
which will decide the outcome of the Formula Ford EuroCup title
for Zolder, is on Sunday morning.
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