Alice Powell consolidated second place in the 2010 Protyre Formula BARC Championship standings at Snetterton in Norfolk on Sunday, 1st August, with a pair of excellent race drives for the Hillspeed team to finish runner-up in round seven and a highly competitive fourth in round eight.
Heading into the event within five points of the series lead, the 17-year-old from Chipping Norton departed the 1.95-mile track slightly further adrift in the title race but with four races still to go before the end of the season the championship crown is very much within her sights.
Team-mate James Theodore, who claimed his fourth pole position start of the campaign for the Hathersage-based squad during qualifying for race one, wasn’t able to capitalise after an enforced retirement when Luke Wright made contact at mid-distance while dicing over second.
Uncharacteristically lining up 11th on the grid for the second of the weekend’s encounters after missing out on the slick tyre window of opportunity on a drying track in qualifying, the Telford teenager battled through superbly into a fighting fifth place – just 1.6 seconds behind Silverstone Hotels-supported Powell.
Hillspeed’s third driver, rookie single-seater racer Josephine Ferrada, produced by far her most impressive performance since graduating to Formula Renault BARC in May. Qualifying 14th fastest for both races, the 17-year-old Anglo-German driver achieved an 11th place finish in round eight a mere 0.8 seconds shy of the coveted top 10. In round seven, she finished an equally creditable 12th.
“It’s not been a bad weekend overall, Alice did a great job to finish on the podium in race one but we are disappointed not to have seen James on the podium as well as he would certainly have taken a top two at least had he not been taken off”, said team principal Richard Ollerenshaw, “We still have a great chance of fighting for the title though and we’re sure James and Alice can win more races.
“James did a fantastic job to take pole in first qualifying but in the second session we missed out on the slick tyre window during the final minute or two. We’ve never seen a track dry as quickly as it did nor how fast the slick tyres came up to temperature. Josephine has been strong all weekend and her pace has definitely improved. All in all a decent weekend, but we feel we should have had more.”
Both qualifying sessions on Saturday took place on a drying track and in the round seven period Theodore emerged as the class of the field to take his third pole position on the trot with a time of 1m15.776 seconds (92.73mph), some 0.4 seconds clear of his closest rival. Powell posted a best of 1m16.598 seconds (91.74mph) to take fifth while Ferrada lapped in 1m19.106 seconds (88.83mph).
At the start of Sunday’s first race, Theodore slipped to second in his Liberty Properties-backed car but remained glued to the rear wing of leader Joseph Reilly for the first five laps. After clipping the kerbs heavily at the Esses on the sixth tour though, he consequently dropped to third behind Wright.
Split by a mere 10th of a second heading into lap seven, Theodore got a fantastic tow on the run to the first corner, Riches, but as he moved up the inside to retake second place Wright turned in and both cars were pitched into an instant retirement.
This allowed Powell, who had already moved into fourth place on the opening lap, to grab second position and from that point on she reeled in Reilly by reducing a 2.3 second deficit to just half a second at the chequered flag. She also posted the second fastest lap of the race in the process.
Ferrada unfortunately had a terrible start and ended lap one a long way adrift at the tail of the field but she started to make good progress from mid-distance and as the race wore on she lapped faster and faster. Dispatching Jack Piper and Roman Beregech to take a top 12 result she also lapped within a second of top four pace.
Powell was the quickest of the Hillspeed trio in round eight qualifying with the fifth best time again while Theodore was only able to manage 11th fastest when caught in traffic on his slick tyre run at the end of the drying session. Ferrada, meanwhile, impressed with the 14th best time, lapping within just 0.033 seconds of experienced Formula Renault BARC racer Kourosh Khani.
Holding station off the start of race two, Powell maintained fifth place while Theodore wasted little time in making inroads by slicing his way through into eighth by the end of lap one. On the third tour Theodore then moved into sixth behind Powell and the Hillspeed cars ran nose-to-tail.
The formation was broken on lap 12 when Powell got ahead of Kasper Krogh for fourth place but Theodore was equally keen to pass the Danish driver and he made his move on the following tour to grab fifth – capping an impressive rise from the sixth row of the grid.
Ferrada delivered yet another strong performance to take 11th position and on her final lap of the race she posted a best time of 1m09.597 seconds, within exactly a second of Theodore’s pace, to mark an impressive rate of development over her first three championship events.
There is now a lengthy six week break in the Protyre Formula Renault BARC Championship calendar with rounds nine and 10 of the 2010 season taking place over the weekend 11th/12th September at Rockingham in Northamptonshire.
Hillspeed’s next track action though will come just a week from now, 7th/8th August, when the team returns to Snetterton for the resumption of the Ginetta Junior Championship. Heading into the event, Tom Ingram is second in the driver standings, car racing rookie Seb Morris is in 14th position and Hillspeed holds an impressive second place in the team’s championship.
2010 Protyre Formula Renault BARC Championship Driver Standings (after Rds7&8):2nd Alice Powell, 206pts; 6th James Theodore, 133pts; 14th Josephine Ferrada, 56pts
