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Tappy Extends Lead With Second Successive Win |
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Tuesday, 24 April 2007 |
Duncan Tappy (West Ewell) extended his lead at the top of the Formula Renault UK with Michelin Championship to 15 points with a narrow win in round three at Rockingham on Sunday, 22nd April. The Fortec Motorsport driver beat his team-mate Dean Smith (Wolverhampton) by 2.597s, with Apotex Scorpio Motorsport’s Will Bratt (Banbury) clinching his first podium of the season in third.
Smith led the field away from pole position with fellow front row starter Tappy slotting in behind him. Bratt made a lightning start from fifth on the grid to pass both Riki Christodoulou (Sutton Coldfield) and AKA Cobra’s Jeremy Metcalfe (Fleet). Christodoulou was forced to the outside of the circuit and after the tight Deene hairpin, found himself down to 11th place at the end of lap one from third on the grid.
AKA Cobra’s Nathan Caratti (London) and Manor Competition’s Alexander
Sims (Peterborough) both gained three places on the opening lap. But
Sims’ team-mate Kris Loane (Kesh, Co Fermanagh) failed to complete the
opening lap after a strong qualifying session saw him start the race
from 10th.
Eucatex’ Adriano Buzaid (Oxford) regained one of the two places he lost
at the start of the race by passing Manor Competition’s Richard
Singleton (Conwy) on lap three. On the following lap, Borthwick
Motorsport’s Ryan Borthwick slid wide at Gracelands bend allowing
Eurotek Motorsport’s Jordan Oakes (Hopton) to gain momentum and pass
him at Tarzan hairpin.
Oakes then dropped two places after a small mistake allowed both
Borthwick and Fortec’s Ryuji Yamamoto (Northampton) to overtake.
Meanwhile, Tappy and Smith had built a lead of around two seconds to
third-placed Bratt, who was one second clear of Metcalfe.
On lap six, AKA Cobra’s Adam Christodoulou overtook Sims for fifth
place at Deene hairpin and soon proved to have the quicker race pace by
opening a significant gap to the Manor car. However, he was too far
behind Metcalfe to make a bid for fourth.
The second retirement of the race came on lap nine when Caratti ran
wide exiting Brook chicane and clipped the outside wall with his right
rear tyre. His team-mate, Chris Holmes (Akeley) closed the gap to Sims
who was heading a train of four cars including Buzaid and Singleton.
That group became three cars when Buzaid out-braked himself into the
left-hand corner at Pif Paf and ended his race in the gravel trap. He
had been attempting to pass Holmes who, remarkably, had completed much
of the race without a front wing after contact earlier in the race.
The decisive moment in the race came on lap 11 when Smith locked his
brakes on the entry to Deene hairpin. He later found his brake bias to
have been set to heavily to the rear brakes but the error allowed Tappy
to seize the lead of the race. The 22-year-old had little trouble
holding off his team-mate over the closing four laps to clinch his
second win from three races.
On the penultimate lap, Oakes passed Apotex Scorpio Motorsport’s new
signing Richard Keen (Amersham) for 12th place and he then passed
Holmes on the final lap to finish 11th. Yamamoto made up one place on
the last lap by passing team-mate Riki Christodoulou.
Commenting on the victory, a delighted Tappy said: “Dean made a couple
of mistakes during the race and I just had to bide my time. On one lap
we both ran wide after he had locked the brakes and I couldn’t get
through. But on the next lap, when he made a bigger mistake at the
hairpin, I was able to make it through the gap. I’m on pole position
for the next race so hopefully I can repeat this result later today.”
Second-placed Smith was disappointed to not capitalise on his early
advantage, saying: “I was pushing hard to keep Duncan behind me and
under braking I was feeling the back end of the car starting to move
out of line. In the end I couldn’t prevent Duncan from getting past but
I should be able to cure the problem for the next race.”
Celebrating his first podium of the season, Bratt said: “It was quite a
steady race for me after a really good start got me up to third. I
thought Jeremy might try to pass me at the end but he fell back.
Although I always want to win every race, the podium was a realistic
aim for me today from fifth on the grid so it’s a good result.”
Drivers’ Championship standings after Round 3 - provisional
1 Duncan Tappy GBR Fortec Motorsport 94 pts
2 Dean Smith GBR Fortec Motorsport 79 pts
3 Adam Christodoulou GBR AKA Cobra 73 pts
4 Jeremy Metcalfe GBR AKA Cobra 72 pts
5 Richard Singleton GBR Manor Competition 52 pts
6 Riki Christodoulou GBR Fortec Motorsport 50 pts
7 Will Bratt GBR Apotex Scorpio Motorsport 49 pts
8 Chris Holmes GBR AKA Cobra 43 pts
9 Jordan Oakes GBR Eurotek Motorsport 33 pts
10 Alexander Sims GBR Manor Competition 32 pts
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