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Aaron Steele’s bid for his and Russell Racing’s first podium finish of the
2008 Formula Renault BARC season unfortunately came undone during a startline
collision at the beginning of the fifth round of the campaign at Oulton Park
Island Circuit yesterday, Spring Bank Holiday Monday, 26th May.
After several weeks of inactivity, the Formula Renault BARC season finally
returned to action at the Cheshire venue and the event started very promisingly
indeed for Russell Racing with excellent qualifying pace shown by the
19-year-old Rochester driver.
Leading the way early on in the 20-minute session, Steele was some four
10ths of a second clear of his nearest rival and continued to sit close to the
top of the times until he pitted with about half the session gone.
When he re-emerged, the Kent racer’s first flying lap of 1m 22.848 seconds
placed him on the second row of the grid. Pipped by Ollie Hancock on the
championship leader’s last lap, Steele slipped to sixth on the grid – even
though he had improved his time to 1m 22.793 seconds (96.79mph).
Incredibly, the Russell Racing ace ended the session only nine 100ths of a
second away from the front row of the grid, such is the competitiveness of the
headline FR2000 Class.
With hopes high throughout the team for a season’s best performance, a
stall on the grid for the No.19 Formula Renault resulted in a major impact to
the right-rear side of the car from the unsighted Kourash Khani.
Ending Steele’s involvement in the race immediately, the non-score means he
has slipped to joint-ninth in the championship standings, tied on 18 points with
James Dixon; the position in the driver standings certainly not indicative of
Steele’s or Russell Racing’s good pace this season.
Reflecting on the team’s luckless fifth round of the season, chief race
engineer Paul Leach said: “It’s such a shame things turned out the way they did.
After qualifying we were confident Aaron would have the pace to challenge
strongly in the race and it could have potentially been the best result of the
year for us – things looked good.
“Unfortunately the car crept a bit on
the line at the start of the race, Aaron reacted to avoid a jump-start penalty
and I think it was simply a stall which triggered the accident from behind. It
was just one of those things. The team did a great job throughout testing and
qualifying, it’s unfortunate we couldn’t achieve a good result.”
Rounds six and seven of the 2008 Formula Renault BARC Championship take
place a lengthy eight weeks from now on 19th/20th July at Croft Circuit in North
Yorkshire.
Provisional 2008 Formula Renault BARC Championship Standings (after
Rd5)
1st Ollie Hancock, 64pts; =9th Aaron Steele
& James Dixon, 18pts
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