GREAT RESULTS FOR NEW SIGNING KARLINA STALA

BAD LUCK FOR JACK PIPER

For this year's Formula Renault 1.6 championship we had hoped to run 3 or maybe even 4 cars. Unfortnately we eventually only reached agreements with 2 parties prior to the first race. The main reason for the lack of drivers not only for us but for the championship in general is as always the budgets required.

We are anyway very happy to have signed with Karlina Stala (Latvia) and (very) young Jack Piper (UK). Karlina joins us having already done last season with our friends from MRD. Jack, at 15 is still very young and venturing out for the first time in single-seaters this year, no doubt drawn to the series by the success of his compatriot Craig Dolby. Craig, with his excellent experience particularly of these cars and circuits is acting as a driver coach for our drivers this year.

Saturday 30 March - QUALIFYING

GIRL POWER!!!

Karlina took provisional pole-position. Karlina stunned everybody including ourselves by taking provisional pole-position.

Already during the Thursday free practice sessions we noticed that Karlina's driving was at a higher level than we admittedly expected with some very encouraging lap times. What she did on Saturday morning however sent a big sense of excitement through the team.

Unfortunately we lost pole in the second qualifying sessions to championship favourit Niels Cox albeit by only O.O2sec.!!!

For Jack however thing weren't that great as a mechanical problem prevented him from getting any decent amount of laps in in both sessions and so he ended up P11 out of 12 cars. Needless to say we were really diappointed as a team and looked at everything we could think of to rectify the problem.

Sunday 01 April - RACES

Race 1

Karlina got a good getaway off the line and came out of the first corners still in P2. In the first laps she was maybe a little overwhelmed and dropped down to P4. Once she had settled into her rhytm she was actually the quickest car on the track by mid-race. This put her in good stead for the end of the race and with a brilliant move in the last corner on the last lap she got P3 and her first podium. Fantastic!

For Jack unfortunately more bad luck as the problem with the car clearly hadn't been solved and he was unable to take the start of the race.

Race 2

Starting from P4 for this race as per the rules, Karlina lost a place early on. Again she found her (quick) rhytm after a couple of laps and while pushing perhaps a little too hard made a mistake and spun in the quick part of the circuit. She managed to keep going without losing too much time and came through in P7. She fought back and eventually got back up to P5 although the car had been damaged by the spin and was clearly not as good as it was before. It soon transpired De Maerschalck would be disqualified for overtaking under yellows and later in the day Cox was disqualified for running a non conforming differential. So Karlina has got two third places to take home from the weekend.