In front of a record breaking "World Series by Renault" crowd, David impressed with some great overtaking to move up the field after a hard qualifying session.
Over the two day race weekend there was a total attendance of 135,000 spectators which was significantly higher than the 110,000 that attended in 2008. Being part of the "World Series by Renault" race weekend - with its packed race schedule - meant that the Formula Renault UK drivers were restricted to one 50 minute practice session which was interrupted numerous times with red flag stoppages. This was followed by a 25 minute qualifying session where the driver's fastest and second fastest laps would dictate the starting positions for each race. For the less experienced drivers like David the single practice session made the short qualifying session particularly challenging.
In race one David started 13th and after a great start he made up a position off the line. On lap one going down Hanger Straight towards Stowe Corner David lined up Tincknell and Krohn and made a brave move around the outside overtaking them both, moving up to 10th behind Laine. Two laps later David made another great move, this time up the inside of Laine at Stowe. David then put in some good consistent laps to catch up with the group ahead and managed to get up to 8th by the end of the race with another gutsy move, this time up the inside of Blomstedt at Stowe. David had very good race pace when not battling for position.
In race two David started 11th and after another great start, was quickly up the inside of cars at the first corner in 8th place before being tapped from behind and pushed off line onto some dust on the track. This destroyed his momentum and dropped him back down the order to 14th. David straight away got back onto the pace and made up positions with some more daring moves into Copse, Stowe and Club, proving his natural race craft. Throughout the race David had very good pace and once up to 9th he was catching the cars in front and by the last few laps of the race he was nearly within striking distance.
Commenting on the weekend David said, "We struggled a bit in practice and qualifying, we were very quick in some corners but lost time in others so we had to work hard at putting it all together. All the way through the weekend the team and I continuously worked at it and by the end my pace was very good and I could have been easily challenging for a podium if I had a better qualifying session. If I had a little more track time at this circuit in the dry, we would have been on the pace from Friday's test session instead of catching up throughout the weekend. However I have to remember this is my first year and I am up against some very experienced drivers.
I was happy with my performance in both races. In race one I had a good start and moved up well in the opening laps and for most of the race I was catching the cars in front. However in the last quarter of the race my tyres started to go and I couldn't close the gap any more. In race two, again I had a great start from 11th and was up to 8th going into the first corner, but unfortunately someone hit me from behind and that pushed me onto some dust at the corner and I lost traction. But again I felt I had a good race recovering from 14th to 9th. It's also good to know that at the end of the weekend the pace was definitely there."
Rounds 13 and 14 of the Michelin Formula Renault UK Championship take place at Snetterton on the 1st/2nd August.
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