Snetterton 4 hours 2007

Qualifying :

The Uniroyal Fun Cup championship arrived at a sunny Snetterton in the heart of Norfolk last weekend, with the drivers of the Cuisine de France / SPAR race car determined to demonstrate their pace after the disappointments of the failed gearbox at Spa.
Ian, Marc and Pete were on the pace in qualifying, the new engine also assisting on the long straights at Snetterton, and the car set up working well thanks to the efforts of Pete and the Abbey Motorsport crew through the practice sessions. However, it proved difficult to get a "tow" from a quick enough car, essential to get a super-quick lap time, so we were 11th quickest out of the 28 cars.

Not that this mattered as the starting grid would be drawn at random and our car would start 12th.

The Race:

Marc took the first stint and made up a tremendous amount of places in the opening 2 laps, climbing to 5th, and looking good for 4th, before an unfortunate contact with the car ahead damaged the front splitter, leaving Marc to struggle with understeer, until the schedule pit stop allowed the team to fit a new bonnet and splitter.
Ian rejoined after the quick repairs in 15th place took and took advantage of the now better handling car to climb up to 11th by the end of his stint. A quick spin at Russell only lost about 5 seconds.
Pete’s first stint started with him in 12th place, as he took the wheel and set about catching the cars ahead, going very quickly up to eighth.
Over the next three stints, Ian, Marc and Pete were able to climb to 6th place, Pete putting in the fastest lap (1:27.819) as he latched onto the back of the #131 JPR car to have a good battle.
It was down to Marc to take the final stint. The team strategy of fuelling Pete to the brim on the previous stop paid off as Pete handed over to Marc in a super-quick pit stop with no refuelling needed
.
Ultimately this tactics cut the gap to the Random Racing car ahead and Marc put in a great effort to catch them with a lap to go, passing on the back straight and bringing the car home in a fine fifth place, just 3 seconds off fourth!
Once again we would like to thank the Abbey Motorsport team. They had a lot of work to do to prepare the cars after Spa and ours ran faultlessly through the whole weekend. Thanks also to Mike and Nick on the pit wall

Nect Race

Next race is at Brands hatch on September 1st