250,000 Renault tickets released for event set to break records
The World Series by Renault will descend upon the East Midlands countryside on the weekend of 8th-9th September, and Brit Pippa Mann is looking forward to her home race at Donington Park, hoping to put on a good show for the fans.
The 22-year old from Suffolk is the only female racing driver in history to contend the World Series by Renault 3.5 Championship – the European F1 feeder series that boasts a high-calibre of drivers and teams, including current F1 test drivers Sebastien Vettel and Giedo van der Garde. At the halfway point in her debut season, Mann has already scored her first point and started from pole position in the competitive 30-strong field. Driving for the successful Norfolk-based team Cram by P1 Europe, Mann is in a fantastic position to add to her already outstanding 2007 achievements!
Mann’s last outing at Donington produced her best result of the season, as she finished inside the top ten of the Formula Renault 2.0 UK Championship last year, despite damage to her car sustained on a first lap incident. Looking to build-on her 2006 success at the circuit, Mann said: “It’s always good to come back to Donington and race in front of my home crowd – everyone is so supportive and it’s a circuit I really enjoy. The first half of the season has been a learning curve, but we’ve put in some strong performances and have set ourselves up for a good second part of the year.”
Mann is currently the highest-running female single-seater racer in Europe, but doesn’t let that phase her: “There are only a handful of women that are competing at this level, and this is the first time I have been the only female driver in such a competitive and highly-rated championship as this, but it’s a great challenge and I love beating the boys! That might make be a bit of a target sometimes, but once I’ve got my helmet on and I’m strapped inside the car, I can’t afford to think about. I just have to go out there and do my best.”
Almost a quarter of a million tickets have been distributed for the free-admission WSR meeting at Donington Park, which could make this the second biggest race meeting outside of the Grand Prix. The race weekend is headlined by the World Series by Renault 3.5 category and features demos of several Renault-powered Formula One cars.
