Irish saloon car ace Jonathan Fildes exited the opening race meeting of the 2007 ELF Renault Clio Cup season furious with team-mate Ben Winrow after being punted out of Saturday’s qualification race and therefore being prevented from progressing to Sun day’s all-important points-scoring round.With just one points-scoring race per meeting under the new format, which has been implemented due to the 40-plus cars on the Clio Cup grid, there are now only 10 opportunities for drivers to score championship points throughout the year; although for Jonathan that number has now been reduced to nine through no fault of his own.Showing strong pace during Friday’s rain-affected test with the fifth fastest time, and then qualifying in third position for Saturday’s Group A heat with a lap of 53.046 seconds (81.35mph), the Total Control Racing star was confident of progressing comfortably through to today’s first championship round of the season.Making a good start to his heat, Jonathan challenged second-placed Winrow on the run to Paddock Hill Bend and took the position before being tagged by his team-mate on the run to Druids. The action was soon stopped however and red flags shown due to a collision between Chris Panayiotou and Jon Lanceley.At the re-start, Jonathan made an even better getaway and easily moved ahead of Winrow into second position but on the journey towards Druids Hairpin the latter attempted an over-ambitious overtaking move, again hitting the 31-year-old’s car but this time with more velocity and forcing the Co.Meath star into retirement.Absolutely livid with his team-mate’s actions, the Applied Signs & Display, Asgard Taverns, Atari Expo and Barry Evans Plastics-backed driver could do little but watch the race action unfold and now faces an uphill battle to get his championship back on track.“What happened on Saturday has made me more determined than ever to win this championship”, said Jonathan, “I’m trying to remain positive and we’re taking a lot of confidence from the fact we’ve been quick since we first ran the new car. This weekend we were on the pace for sure and I’ve no doubt we would have challenged for the win.“It will be tough to try and claw back the ground we’ve lost but what happened to me on Saturday can easily happen to any of the other front-runners. This is the problem with the format which is currently in place, it means championship contenders can be eliminated from qualifying for the points-scoring race through no fault of their own.”The 2003 Clio Cup Champion continued: “Winrow had already hit me during the original start and I couldn’t believe it when he did it again at the re-start, putting me out of the race before we’d hardly got started. There was no way he was going to stop his car without hitting me – I don’t know what he was thinking.”Quite rightly, Winrow was adjudged by the Clerk of the Course to have been at fault for the incident and received a reprimand, fine and three points on his racing licence. Looking ahead, Jonathan returns to the driving seat of his Clio race car just over a week from now, Wednesday, 11th April, for a test session at Hampshire’s Thruxton Circuit. His next race action will come at Rockingham Motor Speedway in Northamptonshire three weeks from now. Round two of the 2007 ELF Renault Clio Cup takes place on Sunday, 22nd April, with pre-event testing on Friday, 20th April and qualifying on Saturday, 21st April.