Mike Conway (Sevenoaks, Kent) settled for a comfortable second place in round eight of the Formula Renault UK Championship at Oulton Park Island Circuit yesterday afternoon to preserve his commanding lead in the driver standings.
The Fortec Motorsport driver started the race from NGK Laser Platinum Pole Position but it was Comtec Racing’s Westley Barber (Wimbish, Saffron Walden) who got the best start from second on the grid to lead through Old Hall Corner.
Team Firstair’s Sean McIntosh, winner of Saturday’s seventh round and runaway leader in the Graduate Cup, maintained third position at the start ahead of Charles Hollings (Norwood, West Yorkshire) but towards the end of the opening lap, the Fortec driver moved into third place after a great pass at Lodge Corner. McIntosh then began to slip away with Manor Motorsport’s Paul Di Resta (Bathgate, West Lothian) taking fourth position from the Canadian on lap two.
On lap three, however, McIntosh’s race came to an abrupt end after Motaworld Racing’s Joey Foster (Truro, Cornwall) misjudged an overtaking move on team-mate Oliver Jarvis (Burwell, Cambridgeshire) which resulted in a collision with the Graduate Cup runner.
At the front, Barber continued to lead from Conway with Hollings in third place, Jarvis now up to fourth and Di Resta in fifth ahead of Comtec’s Susie Stoddart (Northampton) – the latter doing very well to hold on to sixth place as her car had a damaged rear wing.
Even though over the remaining laps Conway closed Barber’s lead to just 10ths of a second, the Fortec driver refused to make any rash overtaking manoeuvres and at the chequered flag it was Barber who took his third win of the season with Conway in second and Hollings on the podium for the second time this season in third position.
Jarvis finished in fourth place, his best result this year, with Di Resta fifth and Stoddart just managing to hold on to sixth position at the line after a spirited challenge from Fortec’s Stuart Hall (Halstead, Essex). Manor’s Chinese star Cheng Congfu (Cottingham, Hull) took easily his best result of the season after finishing in eighth place. Paston Racing’s Craig Dolby (Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire), meanwhile, was the top Graduate Cup driver in 16th place.
Speaking on his win Barber said: “After all the problems we had on Saturday I couldn’t have asked for a better day. The team prepared the car well and it was mega to drive. Yesterday was very confusing but I’m just glad we got the result we did today. Well done to Mike for challenging me so hard but I’m very happy we managed to hold on for the win.”
Conway, who now leads the standings by 73 points from Barber, commented: “I made a bad start and Westley got in front of me but I wasn’t too bothered about taking the win today as long as we could bring home some good points which we did. I set the fastest lap too which is obviously very good for the championship. I was pretty close to passing Westley on the last lap but I didn’t want to try anything stupid.”
A delighted Hollings added: “I managed to pass Sean (McIntosh) on the first lap but after that I was third all the way to the flag. I would say it was quite easy but it’s never easy at Oulton Park – the tyres started to lose grip today due to the heat and the last few laps were quite difficult with the car sliding around quite a lot. I’m very pleased to be on the podium again.”
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