AT BRANDS HATCH INDY Round nine of the 2007 Formula Renault BARC Championship at Brands Hatch Indy Circuit this afternoon saw the Russell Racing team forced to battle the odds once again, although Menasheh Idafar continued his excellent progress with a creditable 13th place finish in the headline FR2000 Class.The British-born Bahraini racer, the youngest competitor in the series, qualified as the best of the Russell Racing drivers during this morning’s 20-minute session at the Kent venue, a best lap of 47.263 seconds (91.297mph) placing him 17th on the grid, just over a second shy of the pole position time.Mark Gillibrand, the Warwickshire team’s most successful driver of the season so far, was forced to bed-in a new engine after a failure to his original Renault powerplant during testing on Saturday so the Manchester-based star was prevented from getting the full performance he wanted during the session and had to settle for the 19th best time.Mohamed Al A’li was just six 100ths of a second slower than Mark in 20th position while the returning Essa Mohammed, who was forced to miss the recent Snetterton race weekend due to an injury sustained in a karting accident, would line up in 22nd place.At the start of round nine Mark produced one of his customary electric getaways to climb into the top 16 by the time he entered Paddock Hill Bend, moving ahead of Menasheh with Mohamed close behind in 18th place and Essa in 19th as all four Russell Racing cars ran line astern on the opening lap.By lap three, Mark had edged into the top 15 and looked to be making strong progress but the race was stopped on lap four due to a car stranded in a dangerous position at Druids Hairpin.Undoing all of his hard work, the 24-year-old was bitterly disappointed to see the red flags but worse luck was to follow at the re-start when he was forced to pit before the end of the opening lap with a broken gear cable, sending him into a very unfortunate retirement.With Menasheh running as the lead Russell Racing driver in 14th place as the re-started race entered lap two, he looked to have the measure of his fellow Bahrainis and went on to finish in 14th position on the road, 13th in class, eight seconds clear of Mohamed. Essa made a good return to action, meanwhile, three seconds further back in 16th place.“It’s been a trying start to the weekend for us”, said Russell Racing team owner Tim Russell, “First we had a problem with the ECU on Menasheh’s car in testing and then Mark’s engine failed so the team worked incredibly hard overnight to fix everything in readiness for qualifying.“They all did a great job and it’s just such a shame we had the issue with the broken gear cable on Mark’s car today. He looked very strong in the first part of the race and deserved much more. Menasheh did an excellent job to finish 13th in class and with Mohamed and Essa just behind it was nice to see all three cars take the flag.Russell added: “On behalf of the team, I would like to take the opportunity to thank Tony Worswick for allowing us to use one of his spare ECUs for Menasheh’s car. There is a good atmosphere in the paddock among the teams and drivers and that’s one of the highlights of racing in Formula Renault BARC.”
Round 10 of the Formula Renault BARC season will take place at Brands Hatch Indy Circuit tomorrow, Bank Holiday Monday, 27th August, at 16.05 and is scheduled to be contested over 18 laps. The 20-minute qualifying session, meanwhile, is expected to begin at 10.50.
