Manor Competition made a welcome, and long-awaited, return to the FormulaRenault 2.0 UK Championship podium at Croft in North Yorkshire over theweekend, 18th/19th June, with rookie driver Jordan King racing to anexcellent third place finish in the 10th round of the season.Rain throughout the two days led to unpredictable track conditions - thefirst qualifying session on Saturday taking place in the wet and the finalrace of the weekend contested on a drying track after an earlier shower.During the round nine qualifying session, Josh Hill was the best placedManor driver with the fifth fastest time while Alice Powell was ninthquickest and King was unfortunately able to lap no better than the 12th besttime due to an excursion part way through the session.At the beginning of Saturday's race, Hill made an outstanding start to getup into third place but was forced back to sixth at Tower when OliverRowland dived up the inside and forced the Manor star wide. The delay alsoenabled championship leader Alex Lynn to go through as well.Now running in sixth, Hill managed to get back into the top five on lap twoprior to a brief Safety Car interlude. Further behind, at mid-distance, Kingmanaged to get ahead of Powell for ninth and the pair circulated in thatorder to the finish on lap 16 with only 0.4 seconds between them.Four laps from the end, Hill produced a great pass to sneak past Lynn andgrab fourth place and at the chequered flag the Farnham driver wasfrustratingly only half a second shy of his maiden main-season podium.Furthermore, his fastest lap of 1m18.276 seconds was less than a 10th of asecond shy of the quickest of all.For round 10, Powell started a fantastic third on the grid after a verystrong performance in the second qualifying session on Saturday afternoonwhile Hill lined-up seventh on the grid two places ahead of King.Disappointingly for reigning Protyre Formula Renault BARC Champion Powell,at the start of Sunday's race she was forced wide at the first corner andafter rubbing wheels with two other cars the tracking on her FR 2.0 wasdamaged. This led to problems with the steering which resulted in anunfortunate moment at the chicane which resulted in retirement.King therefore moved up into sixth place with Hill assuming eighth as rainstarted to fall and then, as the race reached the midway point, Hill grabbedseventh place from Daniel Cammish before gaining another spot at the expenseof Rowland who retired with damage. His removal from the equation, aftercontact with Tio Ellinas, also promoted King into the top four.As Ellinas struggled Hill challenged and moved into fifth through the Essesbut at the hairpin at the end of lap nine, contact from Ellinas resulted ina damaged radiator on Hill's car and although trying to continue he couldn'tprevent running straight on at the first corner into the gravel trap.King, therefore, was the sole remaining Manor car in the race - now in thirdposition - and over the final few laps he closed down second place but ranout of time and finished 2.5 seconds adrift at the flag in a, nonethelessfantastic, third place to take Manor Competition back onto the rostrum."We're delighted to see Jordan take his first podium", said Manor co-ownerTony Shaw, "It's been a tough season so far but we know we have the pace andthe team to achieve top results. Josh did a fantastic job in both races,it's just a shame he had contact in the second one.

"After qualifying third for the first race we had high hopes for Alice butit wasn't to be unfortunately. We've now got a long break ahead of the nextrounds at Snetterton, the aim is to go there and fight for more podiums."In other news, Manor's fourth driver Ollie Millroy wasn't able to compete inrounds nine and 10 at Croft due to budgetary problems.

Provisional 2011 Formula Renault 2.0 UK Championship Driver Standings (afterRd10):6th Ollie Millroy, 152pts; 7th Josh Hill, 148pts; 8th Jordan King, 127pts;11th Alice Powell, 101pts