Leading team Hillspeed delivered a remarkably successful showing during the finale of the Protyre Formula Renault BARC season at Thruxton on Sunday, 17th October, with two race wins, a pole position and a memorable title victory – the team’s second championship success in as many weekends!
Off the back of winning the 2010 Ginetta Junior Championship with teenage driver Tom Ingram at Brands Hatch last weekend, the Hathersage squad headed to Thruxton for the last two races of the Formula Renault BARC season needing to overturn a 16 point deficit in the driver standings.
Not only did team driver Alice Powell manage to do that to become the first female champion in the history of the category with a superb race victory during the final round, Hillspeed’s James Theodore also tasted the winner’s champagne in the opener and ended the weekend in the series top three.
Coming just two days after the 40th anniversary of the team’s inauguration, the Thruxton weekend was the perfect way for the Richard Ollerenshaw led outfit to celebrate such a landmark and success in achieving title glory in both single-seater and closed-wheel competition.
“It’s been an exceptional year for Hillspeed”, said Ollerenshaw, “Winning two championships in two weekends is an absolutely perfect way for us to celebrate our 40th anniversary. Alice thoroughly deserved to win the title, she produced an incredible performance and was supported fantastically throughout by James – what a way to end 2010.”
While the weekend turned out to be little short of faultless for Hillspeed in the end, Powell’s bid was threatened in qualifying when a highly unfortunate problem with a fuel injector seal necessitated a rapid repair and limited her to only half of the allotted time in which to set representative times.
Theodore just missed out on pole position for round 11 by a mere 0.065 seconds while Powell set the fourth fastest time, within three 10ths of a second of the front row, and Hillspeed’s third driver Josephine Ferrada was an impressive 15th quickest on her maiden visit to the 2.35-mile track.
Powell’s second best time, however, was such that it was good enough to give her pole position for the potentially decisive final race – round 12 – with Theodore lining up alongside on the front row and Ferrada an improved 14th fastest.
In the opening encounter Theodore took the lead of the race from Powell’s title rival Mitchell Hale on the first tour and after seeing off a mid-race challenge from Hale’s team-mate Joseph Reilly, the Hillspeed racer pulled away to a winning margin of almost four seconds. Theodore also posted the fastest lap of the race, 1m12.882 seconds (116.37mph) to gain two bonus points.
Importantly, Powell came through strongly from the second row of the grid and by lap three she had moved ahead of then points leader Hale. Challenged hard for her third place, the 17-year-old battled impressively and soaked up the pressure to eventually come through to second to move to within just two points of the series lead. Ferrada, meanwhile, ended the first encounter in 15th position.
Powell seals championship crown in fitting styleStarting on pole for round 12, Powell made no mistakes and got away well to lead from Theodore who did a superb job of repelling the attack from Hale and the other pursuers. Two separate Safety Car periods threatened to unsettle the order but Powell and Theodore handled them comfortably.
Theodore did get pushed back to third on lap 15 by returning Formula Renault BARC driver Dino Zamparelli but he fought back a lap later at the chicane to retake second where he remained to the flag on lap 17 – ending the race within a second of winner, and new champion, Powell. Theodore once again posted the fastest race lap too, a time of 1m13.190 seconds (115.88mph).
Ferrada continued to improve and in the second race she finished in 14th position, just 0.1 seconds behind the much more experienced Andrew Jarman. Although having missed the opening two races of the season, the Anglo-German driver managed to end the year tied on points with 13th placed Steven Durrant in the driver standings.
“I don’t know what to say”, said Powell, “It’s been a cracking year and huge thanks go to the guys at Hillspeed and my race engineer Sarah (Shaw – Manor Competition) for doing such a great job. James has been a great team-mate too; we’ve worked together really well. I’m so happy to have won the championship – it was an incredible weekend and an amazing way to win it.”
Theodore commented: “It’s been a fantastic weekend and great to end the season third in the championship with another win. I’ve had a brilliant two years with Hillspeed in Formula Renault BARC, I couldn’t have asked for better. Our sponsorship deal with Liberty Properties has come to an end now though so we have to work really hard to try and secure the funds to keep racing in 2011.”
Team principal Ollerenshaw added: “It all started at Thruxton back in April with our first win in the Ginetta Juniors and to come back to a circuit which has been reasonably good to us over the years and have such a successful run to win our second championship of 2010 is outstanding. Everyone at the team has done a superb job this year, they’ve all worked so hard and deserve the success.
“We couldn’t have asked for anything more from our drivers, Alice and James did an exceptional job and Alice handled the pressure of the championship. It’s a real credit to her and the way she’s driven this year. James had to race equally hard though to try and finish third in the standings. To achieve that was tremendous and he supported Alice so well.”
He continued: “Josephine’s progressing all the time. To have never even seen Thruxton before this weekend and to have not even had the benefit of a track day, she’s driven superbly. All credit to her, if she does return to the championship in 2011 we’re confident she’ll move up the grid nicely.”
Final 2010 Protyre Formula Renault BARC Championship Driver Standings:Champion: Alice Powell, 288pts; 3rd James Theodore, 254pts; 14th Josephine Ferrada, 81pts
