DURING PRE-EVENT CROFT TESTHillspeed’s Menasheh Idafar underlined his race winning potential at Croft Circuit in North Yorkshire yesterday, Friday, 18th July, during unofficially timed pre-event testing ahead of the weekend’s sixth and seventh rounds of the 2008 Formula Renault BARC season.Chomping at the bit to be back racing after a lengthy eight week break from competitive action, the 17-year-old British-born Bahraini cannot wait for the championship to resume tomorrow, Saturday, 19th July, at the scenic Croft-On-Tees track.Emerging as the quickest driver during the three, 30-minute Formula Renault BARC sessions, Menasheh set a best lap of 1m 20.4 seconds – just a 10th of a second shy of the quickest time he managed during dry testing at Croft earlier in the year – and is now bidding to add to the three pole positions he has already achieved this season.Although inconsistent weather made for unpredictable running today, Menasheh is confident he and his Derbyshire based team will be competitive come rain or shine over the weekend as he strives to close the points gap to series leader Ollie Hancock.“Today’s test run was good, we managed to be quite a bit faster than anyone else – if our timings were correct – so I’m feeling confident for qualifying tomorrow and Sunday’s two races”, said the Ortolan, Gulfol and Gulf Computer Services backed star, “It’s been a long break since Oulton Park. I can’t wait to be back racing again, it’ll be fantastic.”While the Formula Renault BARC race calendar has been inactive since the end of May, Menasheh understood the importance of continuing to test during the interim and the extra mileage he has completed in recent weeks could well pay dividends during the sixth and seventh rounds of the campaign.Importantly, competitors will only have one 20-minute qualifying session tomorrow afternoon in which to set times for both grids so it will be vitally important for Menasheh to produce at least two consistently quick laps.Qualifying is timetabled to take place at 12.25 tomorrow, Saturday, 19th July, with both 14-lap races following on Sunday, 20th July. Round six is expected to get underway at around 13.15 with round seven scheduled to begin at approximately 16.15.Provisional 2008 Formula Renault BARC Championship Standings (after Rd5):1st Ollie Hancock, 64pts; 2nd Menasheh Idafar, 47pts; 3rd Johannes Seidlitz, 38pts