Dents Hopes

Northern Ireland’s Andrew Herron departed Cheshire’s Oulton Park Island Circuit yesterday evening, Sunday, 27th July, frustrated with the outcome of the 14th round of the SEAT Cupra Championship; contact from rival Carl Breeze ending the 20-year-old’s hopes of challenging for the podium.Lining up fourth on the grid for this afternoon’s race, the JHR Developments star was confident he would be able to fight for a top three finish having driven strongly to fourth position during Saturday’s 13th round of the championship.Getting away from the line cleanly, Andrew gave third placed Martin Byford racing room on the inside of Old Hall but as the Brian Herron Contracts-backed driver turned in himself, Breeze forced his way up the inside and made contact in what the Clerk of the Course later deemed a ‘racing incident’, much to Andrew’s chagrin.Spinning Andrew round in the middle of the track on the exit of the corner, the move by Breeze wiped out any chance the Dromore sensation had of a decent finish. Recovering a long way down on the remainder of the field, Andrew ploughed on as hard as he could to close the gap and he managed to get back on terms with the others by lap four.Running in 12th position, Andrew soon realised he was losing out to the others in terms of straight-line speed due to a problem with one of his rear wheels – a result of the lap one contact. This prevented him from attempting any overtaking moves throughout the remainder of the 14 lap encounter, his car was simply not on a par with the others.The SEAT front-runner eventually came home in 10th position having got ahead of James Appleby as a result of the latter being involved in contact mid-way through the race. Scoring three points today, Andrew maintains fifth place in the driver standings some 41 points clear of his pursuers. In turn, he is 40 points shy of fourth placed Breeze.Commenting on round 14, Andrew said: “I’m confident we would easily have been on for another fourth place today and quite possibly a podium as I don’t think (Martin) Byford was any quicker than we would have been. Instead, I’ve come away with a poor finish and it was no fault of mine. I’m not at all happy about it but we’ll bounce back.“I had fourth place going into the first corner but then the contact came which then led to the back wheel being off-set. We lost a lot of speed on the straights because of that which prevented me from making any attempts at passing. It’s annoying but the focus now is Knockhill – I want to be back on the podium there for sure.”Andrew now takes a three week break from competitive action ahead of rounds 15 and 16 of the 2008 SEAT Cupra Championship which will take place at Knockhill Circuit in Scotland over the weekend 16th/17th August.Provisional 2008 SEAT Cupra Championship Driver Standings (after Rd14):1st Robert Lawson, 228pts; 2nd Jonathan Adam, 206pts; 5th Andrew Herron, 141pts