Alex Lynn drove a strong race against the most competitive field of his car-racing career to take 10th place in the Formula Renault UK Championship on the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit.
Alex, who celebrated his 17th birthday on the Friday test day ahead of the race weekend, was competing not only against the Renault UK regulars, but also a selection of drivers from the prestigious Formula Renault Eurocup.
Essex racer Lynn took his Fortec Motorsport machine to a top-10 finish, just losing out in a late battle with the best of the Eurocup racers, and in a long train of cars from third place back.
Unfortunately, the second race featured a collision with one of the championship contenders. After a precautionary pit-stop, Lynn rejoined to claim his second victory of the day in the Graduate Cup for young rookie drivers, which he is almost certain to clinch in the final round, at Brands Hatch in three weeks’ time.
Lynn did a fine job to qualify 11th fastest overall. Uniquely, at this race meeting the grid for race two was formed not by a second qualifying session but by the drivers’ second-best times in the single session. Alex showed his consistency in this regard by posting the ninth best of these times, just 0.027 seconds off his overall fastest.
In the first race he got a good start to rise from 11th to ninth, before then moving up to eighth when a rival ran wide. A very quick spin at the flat-out Farm left-hander on the third lap cost Alex three places, but he quickly got back into the battle ahead and took a top-10 position.
“I managed to get down the gearbox quickly during the spin and rejoin without losing too many places,” said Lynn. “It was a good race which I really enjoyed. It’s a top-class field out there, with a load of top Eurocup boys, and to be doing this with so little track time is good. As well as that, the track conditions are changing all the time with all the rubber from the Formula Renault 3.5 cars going down, so that made qualifying particularly difficult.
“I got a good start to the second race, but into the Vale left-hander the guy behind tried too hard and just crashed into the side of me – it was an unnecessary manoeuvre. It damaged the floor, bent the rear wing and the tracking’s out – not a very nice car to drive!”
Now Lynn is looking ahead to the final round, at the Brands Hatch Indy circuit on October 9/10: “I am really looking forward to Brands to getting that first Renault win under my belt - if not two!”
The Formula Renault UK Championship was this weekend part of the World Series by Renault, a hugely popular European tour. It attracted 125,000 spectators over the two days, with 75,000 attending on Sunday, when both races were held.
