Rob Smith, erstwhile leader of the Power Maxed MINI Challenge, is setting his sights on a major fightback during the penultimate event of the 2015 season next weekend, 19th/20th September, when the championship returns for its second visit of the year to Donington Park in Leicestershire.
During the season curtain-raiser at the East Midlands venue in April, on the National Circuit configuration, the 23-year-old from Telford got his maiden MINI Challenge title campaign off to a sensational start with two wins from the opening three races.
Maintaining his position at the top of the headline MINI F56 driver standings following the second event of the campaign at Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit, the Excelr8 Motorsport racer’s season then took a turn for the worse with a run of terrible misfortune during the subsequent events.
Last time out at Oulton Park, though, Rob’s title hopes took their biggest knock of all with the hammer blow of a double retirement – damper failure in the opening contest compounded by first corner contact in race two, not of Rob’s making, which ruled him out on the spot.
Slipping to seventh in the driver standings as a result, the Shropshire driver says aspirations of challenging for the championship over the final two events are no longer in his mind and his goal is to instead focus on battling for as many wins and podiums as possible.
“I’m definitely going all out for wins now, we’ve got to be due a change of fortune”, said the Evergreen Tyres, BMTR and Grouptyre-backed driver, “Hopefully we can have a bit of symmetry to the season – we had podiums in the first five races and we’ve only got five to go, so the intention is to be back up there.”
With two race victories and a total of six podiums so far in his first full season in the MINI category this year, Rob has more than proven his credentials and after a break of around a month since the previous event he is feeling completely revitalised.
Rounds 15 and 16 next weekend will be contested on Donington’s full Grand Prix Circuit layout and having climbed the podium there a couple of years ago, on his first ever appearance in a MINI, he is targeting more of the same a week from now in his 275bhp 2.0-litre MINI F56.
For the penultimate event of the campaign, Rob will also enjoy additional support from Cartyrestore, the Midlands’ number one tyre wholesaler which is part of well-known Birmingham tyre specialist, and existing backer, BMTR.
“Since Oulton I’ve just had some down time with the aim to come back refreshed”, he added, “We’ll test on Thursday and Friday before the race weekend, try and work on some stuff with the car and prepare as well as we can for qualifying. I haven’t got a lot of experience of the GP track, although my first race on it was in the MINI Challenge in 2013 and we had a podium – that bodes well.”Qualifying at Donington will get underway at 17.10 on Saturday, 19th September, with both races following on Sunday, 20th September, at 11.40 and 16.30 – with live timing HERE
Provisional 2015 Power Maxed MINI Challenge Driver Standings (after Rd14): 7th Rob Smith, 439pts
