21st September 2011

Manor Competition had one of its most difficult outings of the 2011 Certina Formula Renault 2.0 UK Championship season at Rockingham in Northamptonshire over the weekend, 17th/18th September, with a less than fruitful showing for all three of the New Ollerton team’s drivers.

Alice Powell and Jordan King did at least post points-scoring finishes in rounds 15 and 16, each taking a best result of seventh place, but for Josh Hill the event turned into a nightmare with a brace of non finishes seriously affecting his championship position.

Of the trio, Powell had the most consistent weekend in terms of results with seventh in race one and eighth in race two and the two scores have enabled the Chipping Norton teenager to leapfrog Hill into the top six of the driver standings – Manor’s highest placed racer.

In qualifying on Saturday, King only missed out on pole position for round 15 by 0.2 seconds but the competitiveness of the championship told with his time of 1m15.803 seconds (92.13mph) placing him fifth on the grid.

Hill was 0.2 seconds further adrift with the seventh best time while Powell was 11th, just half a second away from the top. It was most certainly a case of what might have been though for Powell as she unfortunately clipped a tyre-stack at the chicane on her best lap.

Session two, determining the grid for round 16, saw Hill come to the fore as the lead Manor driver with the sixth best time of 1m16.348 seconds while King and Powell were less than satisfied with 11th and 12th on the grid respectively.

At the beginning of Sunday’s first race, King held his top five placing off the line while Hill got away well too and moved into the top six on the inside line through Turn One of the Rockingham Oval. The latter’s involvement was short-lived though when he was punted out of the race at Chapman Curve following an ambitious passing attempt by Jack Hawksworth.

The collision resulted in the Safety Car being deployed, with King in fifth and Powell 10th, and at the re-start the Manor pairing remained in position although Powell moved into ninth on lap four. As the race passed mid-distance, King came under pressure from championship leader Alex Lynn but he held his nerve and rebuffed the latter’s attention.

On lap 11 though, King had a highly unfortunate spin exiting Pif-Paf which dropped him down the order to an eventual finish of ninth place. One lap after King’s moment, Lynn did almost exactly the same so Powell profited and moved up into the top seven where she stayed to the flag.

Round 16 brought more misfortune for Hill who, on lap two, was involved in a huge accident with Oscar King on the run to Deene Hairpin. Promoting King and Powell into seventh and eighth place respectively, the duo remained there to the chequered flag on lap 16 to cap off a tough weekend.

“It’s definitely not been the sort of weekend we planned for or expected”, said Manor Competition co-owner Sarah Shaw, “Unfortunately both races were ones to forget for Josh and the results Alice and Jordan posted weren’t where we expect to be. It’s been a difficult season but we’re determined to enjoy some improvements during the last two events at Brands Hatch and Silverstone.”

Only two weeks remain until the next instalment of Certina Formula Renault 2.0 UK Championship action with rounds 17 and 18 of the season taking place over the weekend 1st/2nd October at Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit in Kent.