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Hogan Dominates At Snetterton To Extend Championship Lead |
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Monday, 14 August 2006 |
AKA Lemac star Patrick Hogan (Killiney, Co Dublin) drove a flawless race from pole position to win round 13 of the Formula Renault UK with Michelin Championship at Snetterton on Sunday, 13th August. His chief title rival, Fortec Motorsport’s Sebastian Hohenthal (Northampton) finished second with Manor Motorsport’s Cheng Cong Fu (Oxford) in third. Hogan also set the Fastest Lap of the race at 1min 06.188s (106.17mph) to score a potentially crucial two bonus points.
Having been the fastest driver in both of Saturday’s qualifying session, Hogan made a clean start to lead into the first corner. Alongside him on the front row, Cheng struggled to get away from the line and as he held up third placed Markus Niemelä (Lincoln), Hohenthal passed the pair to seize second place at Riches
corner with Fabio Onidi (Northampton) also overtaking Cheng.
Onidi would drop three places in the space of two laps as Cheng, Jeremy
Metcalfe (Fleet, Hants) and Sam Bird (Claygate, Surrey), driving an
unfamiliar new car after his accident at Donington Park in the previous
round, all passing the Italian. David Epton (Fleet, Hants), who was
running in eighth place, spun on the exit of Riches and hit the tyre
wall to end his participation in the race.
The early laps saw overtaking throughout the pack as Onidi and Nexa
Racing’s Daniel Roos (Bishop’s Stortford), who are contenders for the
B4 Group Graduate Cup, battled for seventh place while current Graduate
Cup leader Dean Smith (Wolverhampton) of Coles Racing and Comtec
Racing’s local driver Pippa Mann (Aldeburgh, Suffolk) passed Position 1
Racing’s Armaan Ebrahim.
As Hogan opened a one-second advantage over Hohenthal, Metcalfe and
Bird began to close on Cheng and Niemelä, who was lapping slower than
those behind him. On lap seven, Cheng was able to make his pressure pay
off when he carried good speed through Sear corner and passed Niemelä
for third place on the Revett Straight.
Bird continued to pressurise Metcalfe for fifth place but the AKA Lemac
man was just able to keep ahead as Bird struggled with his
straight-line speed. However, their battle allowed Roos, Onidi and
Duncan Tappy (West Ewell, Surrey), having a strong weekend in the Jamun
Racing Services car, to close and form a chain of five cars.
Nexa Racing’s Armani Jamrozinski (Bishop’s Stortford) became the fourth
retirement of the race on lap 11 when he ran off the circuit at Riches.
In addition to Epton, Alex Williams retired on lap four with mechanical
problems while Manor Motorsport’s Franck Mailleux failed to take the
start after a clutch failure on the grid.
At the head of the field, the gap between Hogan and Hohenthal was
similar to that between Hohenthal and Cheng as the drivers found their
rhythm. In midfield, Scorpio Motorsport’s Will Bratt (Banbury, Oxon)
passed Coles Racing’s Josh Fisher (Bridgwater) to move into the top 10.
Pippa Mann, who celebrated her 22nd birthday on Friday, passed Dean
Smith to climb to 13th place on her home track.
The closest battle on the track continued to be between Metcalfe, Bird,
Roos and Onidi with less than 1.5s covering the quartet. But Metcalfe
was also catching Niemelä, whose race speed in dry conditions did not
quite match the prowess he showed in wet qualifying.
Just in front, Hogan continued to lap within a couple of tenths of his
best time and his Swedish rival Hohenthal was unable to live with the
pace. Irishman Hogan pulled away over the closing laps to win by 3.967s
and extend his Championship lead to eight points.
A delighted Hogan said: “I came here this weekend wanting to show my
dominance of the Championship after two second places at Donington Park
and with two pole positions and this win I think I’m doing that. Races
don’t get much better than that and although the first couple of laps
were a bit hairy because there was water on the circuit, I was always
in control.
Having been forced to settle for second place, Hohenthal said: “I went
full throttle at the start and made up a couple of places but couldn’t
quite keep it going to stay with Paddy. Maybe I pushed a bit too hard
trying to stay with him and the tyres went off slightly. But after
crashing in testing I was pleased to come back and keep in touch in the
Championship.”
For Cheng, it was a third, third place finish in the last four races
and he added: “I had a terrible start really going from second down to
fifth on the first lap. I tried to fight back but by the time I was
able to get past Markus, Sebastian and Paddy were too far ahead to make
up any more places.”
Championship standings after Round 13 - provisional
| Pos. |
Driver |
Nationality |
Team |
Points |
| Drivers' Championship Standings |
| 1 |
Patrick Hogan |
IRL |
AKA Lemac |
320 |
| 2 |
Sebastian Hohenthal |
SWE |
Fortec Motorsport |
312 |
| 3 |
Cheng Cong Fu |
CHN |
Manor Motorsport |
254 |
| 4 |
James Sutton |
GBR |
Fortec Motorsport |
228 |
| 5 |
Jeremy Metcalfe |
GBR |
AKA Lemac |
216 |
| 6 |
Sam Bird |
GBR |
Fortec Motorsport |
205 |
| 7 |
Will Bratt |
GBR |
Scorpio Motorsport |
194 |
| 8 |
Markus Niemelä |
FIN |
Mark Burdett Motorsport |
166 |
| 9 |
Richard Keen |
GBR |
Position 1 Racing |
160 |
| 10 |
Valle Makela |
FIN |
Manor Motorsport |
154 |
| B4 Group Graduate Cup Standings |
| 1 |
Dean Smith |
GBR |
Coles Racing |
126 |
| 2 |
Fabio Onidi |
ITA |
Fortec Motorsport |
124 |
| 3 |
Daniel Roos |
SWE |
Nexa Racing |
97 |
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 06 January 2007 )
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