May 23, 2005

CHARLIE & JOE SHARE WINS AGAIN AT KNOCKHILL

BRENTWOOD: Charlie Donnelly and Joe D'Agostino maintained their stranglehold on the UK Formula Ford Championship on Sunday (22 May), each man taking a win in the Scottish rounds, held at Knockhill.

The championship status quo was thus retained, with Dubliner Donnelly maintaining the championship lead, some 26 points ahead of D'Agostino.

With less than a second covering the top 12 in qualifying, and the Knockhill grid swelled by a bevy of local talent, rounds seven and eight of the Ford-backed championship promised to provide plenty of thrills.

And so it proved right from the start of Sunday's streaming wet opener, with Donnelly sprinting into an early lead in his Jamun Racing Mygale after Brackley-based American D'Agostino squandered his pole position advantage with a tardy getaway.

Within four laps Donnelly had stretched his advantage over D'Agostino to 2.3 seconds and looked set to record his fourth race victory of the season. But it all went wrong for the Irishman five laps from the end when - under no real pressure from his pursuer - he spun exiting Clark chicane. 'I was pushing a bit too hard,' conceded Charlie, who did well to rejoin the race without also losing second to his team-mate Duncan Tappy (West Ewell).

Gifted the lead, Team JLR driver D'Agostino kept his head to record a 2.7-second victory - his fourth - over Donnelly. Said Joe: 'It was just a matter of staying on the black stuff. There was a stream running over the track at Clark and unluckily for Charlie he caught it.'

Tappy's drive to third - from sixth on the grid - was a strong performance which featured a brave passing manoeuvre around the outside of the hairpin on Ulsterman Darwin Smith's Spirit. Smith stayed ahead of St Andrews driver Alan Kirkaldy's Van Diemen to secure fourth, with Aberdeen's Joe Tanner recovering from a spin to take sixth.

Steve Roberts (Whitchurch) moved past East Lothian's Sarah Playfair for seventh place and the Scholarship Class lead with five laps to run. Jonny Baker (Farnham Common) then demoted Playfair from eighth on the final lap.

Championship frontrunner Rob Sunderland (Yatton Keynell) was among the non-finishers, ending his race in the gravel trap at the hairpin after a late-race clash with Tanner as they disputed sixth.

Donnelly's drive to victory in the second of the Knockhill races more than made up for his earlier mistake and, even sweeter for the Irishman, it came at the expense of his arch-rival D'Agostino.

Charlie moved into second spot on the fourth lap when Tanner - who had started second behind D'Agostino - threw away his chances of glory with a lurid slide through Clark. D'Agostino and his Van Diemen had made a perfect start to the race to lead, and Donnelly was nearly two seconds in arrears of the American. But he set about chipping away at the gap in determined style.

After 10 laps Joe's advantage was cut to a bare second, and after a further four tours Charlie seized his opportunity through Hislops and popped past for the lead and on to victory. D'Agostino harried Donnelly all the way home, though, and was just 0.6s behind at flag fall.

'That was hard work, for sure,' said Charlie. 'What's important to me is how I win - and that win was important. I didn't think I'd be able to do it because Joe had such a lead, but my car just came good at the end.'

Tappy also took advantage of Tanner's early slip, moving into third, and held on to it all the way home to collect his second podium of the day. Tanner regained his composure to take fourth, ahead of Smith and Kirkaldy and serial scholarship class winner Roberts. Duncan Vincent, Baker, Mike MacPherson and Thor Ebbesvik completed the finishers.

Disaster befell Playfair's hopes of scholarship success when she and Sandy Forrest collided at the hairpin on the 16th lap. Both the Scottish drivers were out on the spot. Sunderland retired with mechanical dramas.

There's no rest for the championship regulars - they are in action again next weekend (28/29 May) at the UK's quickest circuit, Thruxton in Hampshire, where they will reach the half-way stage in the 20-race UK Formula Ford Championship.

For further media information: Please contact Nick Carter at Max Communications on 01530 563200 or nick.carter@maxcomms.com

Championship website: www.ukformulaford.co.uk