Alex Lynn continued his successful maiden season in car racing with another double Formula Renault UK Graduate Cup win at Rockingham Motor Speedway, Northamptonshire.
Lynn, 16, brought his 2010 season tally to four wins out of four in the division for young rookie drivers, and finished the two races in 13th and 14th positions overall.
The ex-karting star showed resilience after a difficult start to the weekend, which began with the Fortec Motorsport team’s four drivers all further down the field than expected in the Friday test sessions.
Things improved for qualifying on Saturday, with Alex taking 13th on the grid (and fastest in Graduate Cup) for race one and 14th (second in Graduate Cup) for race two. “I’m pretty disappointed,” he admitted. “I’m only six tenths of a second off pole position and two tenths quicker would have put me comfortably in the top ten but the competition seems to have got hotter.”
Wet weather made the first race on Sunday morning a step into the unknown for the drivers and teams. Lynn enjoyed a strong battle for the first few laps before spinning at the exit of the hairpin as he passed a rival. He then recovered from 18th and stormed through the field to take 14th overall, and put in the manoeuvre of the race when he passed two cars in one move at the hairpin!
“Our pace in that race was really good, but because of the nature of the Rockingham circuit it’s very difficult to pass. My big problem was that I couldn’t get through the corner onto the main straight as quickly as I would like, so it was difficult to challenge for a move. I lunged past the other guy but I was a bit eager to put my foot down and spun.”
In the dry second race, Lynn took 13th place and yet another Graduate Cup victory. “Passing two people in one move in the first race showed that my strength was on braking,” he said. “That helped me in the second race because we were lacking speed a little bit, but being good on the brakes meant people couldn’t pass me.”
Alex is now looking forward to next weekend, when the Formula Renault UK Championship visits the famous Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit in Kent for two more races. “I raced hard and learned a hell of a lot this weekend at Rockingham,” he said. “Now I’m really looking forward to Brands. I learned the circuit in a Lotus Elise during the week and I love it, so I’m hoping for another couple of Graduate Cup wins at least.”
Alex’ engineer, Mark Godwin, saw it this way: “Alex did another great job this weekend, he knuckled down and responded to being off the pace on Friday and was the quickest driver on the track at the end of the wet race so his natural speed is not in doubt; as he matures as a driver, he is only going to get stronger and stronger which is really encouraging.”
The Formula Renault UK Championship again enjoyed coverage of the first race at Rockingham on ITV4, and was streamed live on itv.com. Action from the two races will be shown in the Motorsport UK series, which begins a 34-week schedule on April 27 with two repeats each week on ITV4 and one on ITV1. A further showing will be made on the Men & Motors channel. The Motorsport UK audience figure for Formula Renault UK in 2009 was 4,750,000.
Each episode can also be viewed through the ITV player on the ITV website - www.itv.com/catchup - for up to four weeks after the show has been aired.
