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The Croft circuit of North Yorkshire, England was the venue
for a thrilling weekends racing in the BARC Formula Renault championship for Germany’s
Johannes Seidlitz.
The pre-race test sessions were regularly interrupted by
stoppages to recover damaged cars as many of the field crashed out while trying
to get to grips with the challenging nature of the circuit. This left
Johannes and his team frustrated that they were prevented from testing the final
set-up changes prior to qualifying.
Despite the lack of running, Johannes qualified 2nd
and 3rd for the races reinforcing the test day changes were spot on
and the car set-up was looking good for the weekends racing.
As the lights went out for the start of race 1, Johannes and
pole position driver, Nathan Coulter both made good starts, pulling ahead of
the field into turn 1. Coulter quickly settled into a rhythm establishing
a small gap while Johannes was immediately put under pressure from Isa Yousif
and Menasheh Idafar. By lap 5 Idafar was in front of Yousif and made an
over ambitious attempt to pass at the final bend, hitting Johannes from behind
and spinning him off track, puncturing his rear tyre and forcing Johannes into
retirement.
To make things worse for Johannes and his team, a few laps
later Idafar then did the same thing at the same corner to Johannes team-mate,
James Dixon.
Unhappy after the race, Johannes said “he came from
no-where and just hit me from behind and put me out of the race. It was crazy,
I was already on the apex there was no way he could pass there. He should be
punished for ruining our race and also my team-mates race!”
The BARC officials responded to the reports from the circuit
marshalls and Idafar was later excluded from the results.
As race 2 approached the weather made everyone nervous with
dark clouds overhead threatening rain.
As the cars started their formation lap the rain
started. Some of the drivers at the back pitted straight away for wet
tyres in an attempt to gain places if the rain lasted all race. At the
start, Johannes made his now customary good start and followed pole position
man Idafar down to turn one. The pressure of slick tyres in the rain with
fast starting Johannes behind him proved too much for Idafar as he spun at turn
1, taking both his team-mates out at the same time.
Johannes did well to avoid Idafar as he spun and by the end
of the first lap Johannes had a comfortable lead over Yousif. Johannes
then traded fastest laps of the race with championship leader Ollie Hancock as
the circuit dried through the race until the last two laps when Johannes
decided his gap of over 4 seconds was enough to allow him not to take any risks
and just cruised to the chequered flag to win by 4.3 seconds.
After the podium celebrations Johannes said “What a
race, that was soon much fun! This makes up for being taken out of a
podium place in race 1. Thanks to my team for the great work, the car was
great all weekend!”
The win now brings Johannes up to second place in the
championship, 34 points behind Hancock.
Johannes and Hancock will renew their battle at the next
round of the BARC Formula Renault Championship is at Snetterton, Norfolk on 9 August.
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