Airwaves Racing enjoys the spoils at Silverstone

Airwaves Racing celebrated its second race win of the season at the ‘Home of British Motorsport’ Silverstone during the penultimate round of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship this weekend.Continuing the fine form shown throughout the season, the Motorbase-run squad showed flashes of brilliance during Sunday’s three races, with Mat Jackson taking a popular race win in the final race of the weekend preceded by 3rd and 4th place finishes. With team-mate Fabrizio Giovanardi securing 7th in race 2, the results marked Airwaves Racing’s most successful weekend of the season to date.The weekend started well for Mat Jackson with the Airwaves man securing a second row start with a joint best qualifying result of P4 for Sunday’s opening race. Unfortunately it was a different tale for team-mate Fabrizio Giovanardi who after struggling to unlock the pace in his Mountune-powered Ford Focus ST, ended the session in P19.Expectations were high in the team with Silverstone having been a happy hunting ground for the Motorbase Ford in recent years, and race 1 thankfully delivered. Mat’s blistering start off the line saw the #6 Focus charge straight past Tordoff’s MG and slot into P3 as the pack headed into Copse. Mat then set his sights on closing the gap on the race leaders and battled Turkington hard for the second spot narrowly missing out to the WSR driver by just over a tenth of second to claim another welcome podium for the Airwaves Racing Focus and his fourth of the season. Fabrizio delivered a stunning drive from P19, storming through the pack to take 12th as the flag dropped.Race two was a slightly more subdued affair for the #6 Focus. With the combination of 27kg of ballast on board and running on the soft tyre, Mat defended hard under pressure from the charging pack to hold onto a notable P4 finish. Another epic drive from Fabrizio gave the double BTCC champion his opportunity to shine as he battled his way through past a raft of top seeded drivers to snatch a 7th place finish in the #7 Focus ST.With Crabbie’s Racing team-mate Jack Clarke putting Fabrizio on pole for the final race of the day it looked to be a case of third time lucky for the Italian; and with Mat’s 4th place start effectively promoted to P3 after Tordoff’s MG was pushed off the grid, expectations were understandably high in the Airwaves camp.A dramatic opening lap saw Mat charge up into 2nd before the two Airwaves cars headed side by side to cross the start finish line with the #6 taking advantage to claim the race lead just as the safety car was deployed for an incident at the back of the pack. Mat got the jump at the restart with Fabrizio following his lead, and the Airwaves Ford’s held a close procession for the opening laps for a brief Motorbase 1-2. Mat once again put in a perfect performance with a truly professional drive to take the win and pilot the #6 Focus across the line with a commanding 2.7 second lead.Regrettably Fabrizio’s race failed to follow the same path with the #7 Focus coming under relentless pressure from the following pack. After losing a place to Smith’s Passat, Fabrizio kept the Silverstone crowds entertained with a master-class in defending as he held off Turkington, Plato and Menu for the best part of the race. With less than six laps to go, Fabrizio once again found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time as a shunt from Plato’s MG fired Turkington in the Focus, knocking the car momentarily sideways off the track and dropping Fabrizio down into P11.The weekend produced another best result to date for Jack Clarke and Crabbie’s Racing. Having ended Saturday’s qualifying session in a commendable 12th, Jack went on to score points in all three of Sunday’s races whilst claiming his first top ten finish of the season in race 2. The BTCC-rookie once again showed excellent race craft, holding his own in the competitive field and enjoying some of the ‘elbows out’ door to door action that the championship is famed for.  After the weekend’s successes, Airwaves Racing now has a short two week turnaround before the squad’s home circuit of Brands Hatch plays host to the 2014 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship season finale on October 11/12.Airwaves Racing Team Manager Oly Collins said: “A fantastic weekend. Mat and the team thoroughly deserve this result. We had a good test last week before coming here and the proof is in the pudding! Mat’s been on it all weekend and we now head in to the final round in a buoyant mood after today. I really feel for Fabrizio today, he battled so well in that last race and was taken out of what looked to be a double podium for us again! Jack has had a fantastic weekend. He’s really shown today what he can achieve with great weekend of solid results. Really pleased for him. Once again the Motorbase team showed their quality with another 100% finish.”Airwaves Racing driver Mat Jackson said: “It’s been a great weekend. To come here and get a win, a 3rd and a 4th is fantastic. The last race was absolutely awesome and probably one of the best that I’ve ever had at Silverstone. It was just awesome. The car’s gone well again here again, the Focus seems to go well here and it’s a track that I like and it’s been good to us again this weekend. I’m delighted for the team to come here and the car’s been absolutely faultless once again. The pace has been in there and it was a dream to drive. Hopefully we can take that same car to Brands now and we’ll be back in the same position.”Airwaves Racing driver Fabrizio Giovanardi said: “What can I say? Every time I’ve started from pole this season I get taken out, it’s become a tradition! Once again, I seem to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.“The car was good today. We struggled with the balance in qualifying but I was really happy in the car in race 2 and it was good to be at the front fighting with the top guys, but then, it’s all over for me.”Crabbie’s Racing driver Jack Clarke said:“This weekend is another step forward in the right direction and if we keep going like this then the front of the pack is hopefully imminent. It was quite stressful out there at times and I’m really happy for the team and myself to get the result – we really worked well together this weekend and everything just fell into place and the results showed that. The last race was a bit flat, but to be disappointed with 13th is a good sign that we’ve made a big leap forward. Obviously there was a bit of damage on my car from race 2 but the Motorbase guys put it together really well and I’m really happy just to be able to hopefully repay their hard work with some good results.”


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