Sean Walkinshaw achieved a best result of eighth position during his maiden outing in the InterSteps Championship over the weekend, 14th/15th July, at Snetterton 300 Circuit in East Anglia.
Following his highest finish of the weekend in the opening race on Saturday, the category newcomer backed it up with ninth place in race two on Sunday but an unidentified loss of power on lap one of the third encounter prevented a hat-trick of points finishes on his debut with SWB Motorsport.
Its been a good weekend, good development for me, said Sean, It was hard with so little experience in this car to know corner speeds and how hard to push. All of the others have had a lot of track time around Snetterton, but we chipped away and had good races. Its been great working with SWB this weekend, its a good team and everyone did a great job.
Having experienced one of the Mygale FB02 cars for the first time in a race scenario a fortnight ago at Paul Ricard in France, where he posted a best result of sixth for EuroInternational in the visiting Formula BMW Asia Series, Sean arrived at Snetterton aiming for a similarly competitive weekend.
Rain prior to qualifying on Saturday morning resulted in a damp track and challenging conditions, from which the 18-year-old secured 10th place starts for all three of the weekends raceshowever, he was promoted to ninth on the grid for the opening encounter due to a penalty for Matt Mason.
Although making a good getaway, Sean had to give best to experienced InterSteps driver Mason at the start of race one but held 10th position and then moved back into ninth at the expense of Franco Aragones on lap three.
Triggering the start of a see-saw battle between the two, Aragones got back ahead on lap seven but Sean returned the favour on lap nine. In the meantime, a moment for Jack Aitken dropped him to the tail of the field and so Sean took eighth where he remained to the chequered flag, 4.2 seconds clear of Aragones.
Sundays opening encounter only comprised five racing laps due to a lengthy mid-race Safety Car period, but Sean enjoyed another strong run and battled back from 11th on lap two into ninth at the finish. Holding 10th place prior to the cautionary period which began on lap five, the action resumed with just enough time for one final lapwhere Sean passed Russias Nikita Miliakov for ninth.
Unfortunately, race three was less fruitful when a sudden loss of drive on the opening lap resulted in a visit to the pits. Although the cause of the issue couldnt be pinpointed, the glitch seemed to clear itself and Sean eventually rejoined the track where he duly posted his best lap of the weekend with a time of 1m58.388 secondsfinishing four laps down.
Race three was pretty annoying, he commented, Id made a really good start, I got two places at the first corner but thats when the car died, well, started to die, but at least I was able to get back to the pits. Were still not sure what the problem was, whether it was fuel, the clutch, electrical or mechanical. Its frustrating for the weekend to end like that but its just one of those things.
Seans busy mid-year sporting schedule will continue apace next weekend, 21st/22nd July, when he returns to the MTECH Lite fold for rounds eight and nine of the 2012 Protyre Formula Renault BARC Championship season at Croft in North Yorkshire. One week after that, over the weekend 28th/29th July, he will make his second InterSteps outing during the categorys visit to Thruxton in Hampshire.
