AT WORLD SERIES EVENT
ELF Renault Clio Cup championship leader Ben Winrow (Earls Barton) will start rounds 11 and 12 from pole position after a brilliant display in qualifying on Saturday, 7th June. With the saloon-car series making its annual appearance in support of the UK round of World Series by Renault, hosted by Silverstone Grand Prix circuit for the first time, the Team Pyro ace scored his 10th and 11th Michelin pole positions of the season.
Winrow led at the halfway stage of the 30-minute session before posting a time of 2min 08.716s (89.33mph). He then went even quicker with a lap of 2min 08.646s (89.38mph) to place him almost half a second clear of his rivals at the renowned 3.194-mile circuit.
His closest challenger is 2005 Clio Cup champion Jonathan Adam (Fife), making a one-off appearance for Total Control Racing, who is second on the grid for both races ahead of team-mate Alex MacDowall (Carlise) each time. JHR Developments’ Paul Rivett (Banstead) and Full Speed Racing’s Phil Glew (Alford) share fourth and fifth places, with Rivett ahead for round 11 and Glew taking the grid-slot for round 12.
Each driver’s fastest time sets the grid for round 11 and their second-fastest time determines the grid for round 12. The lower end of the top-10 saw more variation between the two grids with the round 11 line-up seeing JHR’s Richard Cannon (Chesterfield), TCR pair Mike Robinson (Effingham) and Jonathan Ridley-Holloway (Barnstaple), APO Sport’s Alex Osborne (Northampton) and Y4HR Miracle Drywash Stancombe Vehicle Engineering’s Niki Lanik (Ashurst Wood) completing the top 10.
For round 12, Robinson moves up to the outside of the third row ahead of Osborne and Lanik on row four. On row five are two drivers who ran at the front in the first half of the session, EPS UK with Robertshaw Racing’s Robert Gaffney (Waltham Abbey) and Coastal Racing’s Carl Bradley (Morecambe).
Commenting on his superb performance, Ben Winrow said: “We tried a few things in testing that didn’t quite work but made changes today to settle the car down and it’s paid off. You have to be quick into the corners and then carry the momentum through so it’s a tricky circuit. It’s my home track so I have a lot of guests here tomorrow and it will be nice to tell them I’m on pole for both races!”
Round 11 is scheduled to start at 09.50 today, 8th June with round 12 at 15.45. A crowd of 40,000 was in attendance for Saturday’s action with more expected on Sunday.
