Mark Burdett Motorsport’s Rodolfo Gonzalez (Attleborough, Norfolk) surprised the Formula Renault UK Winter Championship with Michelin front-runners at Croft Circuit in North Yorkshire yesterday after heading the timesheets during official testing.
Venezuelan-born Gonzalez, who suffered en engine failure during the opening round of the Winter Championship at Pembrey in Wales last weekend before bouncing back to record a seventh place finish during the event’s second outing, lapped the 2.1-mile Croft Circuit this afternoon with a time of 1m 17.817 seconds (98.40mph).
The 18-year old was 0.133 seconds faster than Fortec Motorsport’s Dutch driver Yelmer Buurman who, in turn, was a mere four 100ths of a second quicker than team-mate and current Winter Championship leader Stuart Hall (Halstead, Essex).
Peruvian driver Juan Manuel Polar was a highly creditable fourth fastest for Team aka with a time of 1m 18.153 seconds, less than a single 100th of a second ahead of 17-year old team-mate James Jakes (Cullingworth, West Yorkshire).
Patrick Hogan (Killiney, Co. Dublin) was Manor Motorsport’s best-placed runner in sixth position with Team JLR’s 16-year old sensation Craig Dolby (Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire) seventh fastest and Fortec’s Ben Freudenberg (Northampton) in eighth place.
Pembrey race winners Oliver Jarvis (Burwell, Cambridgeshire) and Stephen Simpson (Enfield, Middlesex) set the ninth and 10th fastest times for Manor and JLR respectively, while local driver Chris Dent (Merryoaks, Durham) was an excellent 11th quickest on the timesheets with a best lap of 1m 18.455 seconds – just six 10ths shy of team-mate Gonzalez.
Official testing resumes at Croft this morning (Friday, 12th November) with qualifying and the decisive third and fourth rounds of the 2004 Formula Renault UK Winter Championship with Michelin taking place on Saturday, 13th November.
For all the latest Formula Renault UK Winter Championship with Michelin news visit the official Renault Sport UK website www.renaultsport.co.uk built by Racecar
