Apotex Scorpio Motorsport’s Kieren Clark dominated the 2nd and 3rd rounds of the 2009 Protyre Formula Renault BARC Championship at Snetterton circuit in Norfolk.
With 2 poles, 2 fastest lap, 2 dominant victories, and the circuit lap record, the weekend belonged to Kieren Clark.
The lights to flag victories were not hampered by the safety car in both rounds taking away the early lead that Kieren had pulled out.Round 2 of the championship saw Kieren qualifying 3/10 sec ahead of Don De Graaff to take pole position. A good start put KC into the corner ahead of the chasing pack, with the next 3 fighting for position.
As KC pulled away from the pack, the safety car was deployed from an incident further back, and everyone grouped up over the next 3 laps. A good restart enabled KC to pull away from the pack and continued pulling away at a steady pace to finish the extended race 8.6 seconds ahead of the 20 car grid, and breaking the previous track lap record by 2/10 sec.
A delighted KC commented “I got a good start to keep Don (De Graaff) behind, but then the safety car came out, so I was concentrating on the restart. After that I kept pulling away, I think the scrabble for position behind me kept them all busy, so I concentrated on qualifying pace. Its great to get the lap record to add the Oulton Park lap record from the first round.”
The grid for round 3 was forming up just as a light drizzle started. A good get away saw KC ahead of Brett Paris in the first corner, and had pulled 2 car lengths gap as the cars streamed towards the end of the first lap, only for the safety car to come out to clear a car stranded on the track. 3 laps of the safety car saw Brett glued to the tail of Kieren, but by the end of the straight at the restart, Kieren had pulled a car lengths gap. Steady driving saw the gap increase as the race went on, with KC seemingly not putting a foot wrong to win by 4.1sec.
An ecstatic KC said “what a great weekend, there wasn’t much I could improve on, even the safety car couldn’t stop me controlling the race. The lap record is great as well. The Apotex Scorpio team did a great job this weekend, as always, and the car was spot on. Our tyre strategy for qualifying paid off in the races.”
“I wasn’t sure I would be out racing this weekend, it’s a hand to mouth existence so we are keen to talk to people and businesses who want to be part of our team, so we can make the next race in 2 weeks time at Croft. Its not much time to get something sorted out, but we will be working as hard as we can.”
John Petit, from the Apotex Scorpio team commented, “another great weekend for Kieren, he didn’t let anything distract him from the job in hand and delivered. “
