Silverstone Formula Renault BARC 21st and 22nd July – Round 5 and 6

6th place for Clark in 3rd Formula Renault race

18 year old Kieren Clark from Tadlow Nr Royston, Cambridgeshire, competed in his 3rd Formula Renault BARC race last weekend at the Silverstone national circuit for his family run 3K’s Racing team. Moving up from Formula Jedi, the youngster has sights set on the Formula Renault UK series next year, a supporting race to the TOCA Touring Car series, where Lewis Hamilton rose to prominence.

2 rounds were run for the capacity grid of identical carbon monocoque cars at the weekend. A wet qualifying, following the cancellation of the previous days testing due to the atrocious weather, put KC 8th on the grid for both races, with the 2nd best time counting for the grid of the 2nd race.

A fast start and some good laps (2nd fastest for the first race) ensured KC kept in the top part of the field to finish a superb 6th in the first and a creditable 8th in the second race.

The focus is now on the next race at Snetterton on August 11th and 12th where the team hope to improve on this excellent weekend’s results.

Silverstone Qualifying – Saturday 21st July – Round 5 and 6

A wet morning greeted the qualifying for the 5th and 6th rounds of the BARC Formula Renault championship, but fortunately not as wet as the open practice the day before, which was cancelled as the heavens thundered down and the whole Silverstone circuit resembled a boating lake.

A wet set-up was clearly going to be needed, but there was some optimism that the conditions might dry, but a quick chat with a driver from an earlier sessions showed that the track was both wet and oily, so plenty of excitement ahead.As soon as the session started, the mist got heavier and in the early laps KC was standing at 5th when the rain started to increase, so removing the chances of anyone improving on their times. The rain slowed and the track started to get faster again, and the front runners pulled some fast laps in until the red flag was shown.

With 3 minutes left of the qualifying session, there was just time for 1 flying lap, and KC put in a time to match his previous best, but could not match the front runners, ending an excellent 8th on the grid for round 5, his 3rd Formula Renault Race.

Round 6 start positions were calculated from the second fastest time of the qualifying session, and KC was again 8th. The next 3 places were all within 0.3 seconds, so absolutely nothing between 8th and 5th and all to play for in the race the following day.

Silverstone Round 5 – Sunday 22nd July

For once the weather was dry and warm for round 5 of the BARC Formula Renault championship.This did bring its own problems as the new slick tyres had not been scrubbed in on the previous wet days running. So with very shiny tyres, Clark lined up on row 4 of the grid, with the front runners in clear view on his 3rd race in the single seater Renaults. Srubbing as much as possible on the green flag lap, the lights went out and KC made a blistering start from 8th, closing the gap between him and the 2 cars ahead of him on the grid, but couldn’t find a way through.

As the race progressed, KC settled into 8th place for the first quarter of the race, managing to pull up a place to 7th as the leading bunch started to lap back markers. KC was struggling to pull cleanly onto the main straight, suffering from understeer through Luffield, but could catch the pack by the time they had gone through the next corner, Copse, and pushed Copeland through the back of the circuit on each lap until in the closing lap a mistake as Copeland ran wide, allowed KC to squeeze through for a well deserved 6th place finish in only his 3rd race in the championship.

Looking at the lap times, KC posted 2nd fastest lap of the race behind 2nd place man Rossi who was cruelly robbed of first place following a skirmish with a back marker in the closing laps of the race 

With the cars in parc ferme, scrutineering checked all top 6 cars and swapped ECU between the cars to make sure that no one car has any advantage. A move that demonstrates how identical all of the Renault cars are. A quick check of the car showed that KC had broken the wooden board that regulates the ride height, so a quick change was needed. First we needed to borrow another teams jacks (thanks to Double M Racing), unfortunately they aren’t in our budget at the moment, but with this quickly fixed, time to relax and watch the F1 before the next race of the afternoon.

Round 6 Silverstone 21st July

KC again had a good start from the grid, but couldn’t gain enough advantage to push past Macdonald and Steele, holding 8th for 4 laps, but not pulling far enough away from the 2 hard chasing cars behind. On lap 5 Hamilton-Smith, closely followed by Dittman, slipped through to drop KC down to 10th, then Fischer took an opportunity to squeeze through to push KC down another place, as the pack weaved for position down the start finish straight.An unfortunate Hancock dropped from the leading pack, to elevate KC back to 10th., until 2 laps from the end, when Fischer allowed him and Dittman through for KC to finish a creditable 9th for the 3K’s Racing team.

KC said “ that was a close race and I was pushing hard to break through to escape Felix (Fischer) and Chris (Dittman). I knew I could chase the front pack but I couldn’t find a way through.”

This was backed up with KC posting  4th fastest lap, even with all the battles during the race.

Following the race, a stewards enquiry eliminated one of the front runners from the results, giving KC some well deserved extra points for 8th place.

Team Principle Diana Clark said “we are really pleased with the performances KC has been putting in, on only his 2nd race weekend in the car. We need to give him the tools to be able to push for the top placings, so we have to focus on fresh tyres for each race, but the finances are going to be very hard”. The focus now turns to the next rounds at Snetterton on 11th and 12th August where the team will be under pressure to find finance for new tyres at each race.