Mondello Park Double Header 2007

The SPAR Cuisine De France team had a very creditable show at the Irish Mondello Park circuit last weekend, with only Ian and Marc Connell driving. However it was great to welcome Hugo Kane, Cuisine De France Chief Executive as our guest on both day.

Race One, 3 Hours Saturday :

The Abbey Motorsport prepared car qualified 7th of the 28 cars, but for the first race, a 3 hour race on Saturday we then drew 28th and last on the grid! For our troubles this also ensured we had an in-car Sky sports camera with us for race one.
Despite this, Ian had a good first stint getting up to 16th, when Marc took over and moved up to 8th by the half way mark. A slow pit stop when the safety car was out dropped us to 11th, but by the last few laps Marc was back to 8th. Great driving saw him take 7th with just one lap to go and then steal 6th place from Random Racing on the last corner of the very last lap. Well done to the other Abbey prepared car which finished 2nd.

Race Two, 3 Hours Sunday :

Race 2 was an even better race for us for. Having started in 15th place Marc was up to 8th place on lap 23. From there Ian took over and climbed to 5th by the end of his stint. Marc continued with more fast laps taking 2nd at the 2 hour stage and moving into the lead on lap 109. This he held until the last pit stop when a fractionally slower pit stop dropped us to 2nd just behind the Honeywell car.

The last 15 laps were great with Marc harrying Geoff Fawcett in the Honeywell car all the way to the flag and never more than about 1 second behind. A last lap lunge nearly paid off but the experienced Fawcett just held on to win the race by 0.6 of a second!

Many thanks to Will our mechanic and all at Abbey Motorsport for their help and to our pit Guru Mike Head for getting the strategy in place.

Congratulations...

Congratulations to Peter Cate who joined the Schumann Hyundai team at the 2007 Nurburghring 24 hours, where the team achieved a superb result, finishing 2nd in class and 13th overall (from 220 starters)!

Well done to Richard Connell who engineered Takuma Sato in the Super Aguri F1 to a great points scoring 6th place in the Canadian GP, the best ever result for the team.

The Next Race

The next race is the Spa 25 hours in Belgium on July 7th and 8.