Jarman faces race against time after dramatic exit from Round 3 of the BARC Formula Renault Championship.
Andrew and his SWB Motorsport team face a race against time after a dramatic exit from Race 1 at Brands Hatch on Sunday 15th May which resulted in heavy damage to the Milton Keynes racers BARC Formula Renault.
After a strong performance in Friday practice, Andrew was unable to replicate his performance during Saturday’s qualifying session which left him 14th on the grid in what was the most competitive qualifying session of the year so far with just 1 second covering the top 16 drivers.
Starting on the outside row of the grid, as the lights went out, Andrew was lucky to avoid a collision on the grid after a stalled car was collected by one of Andrew’s SWB Motorsport team mates, causing a red flag and restart to the Race.
At the Race 1 restart, Andrew made a great getaway and jumped up from 14th to 10th. Quickly closing down the pack in front up to 6th position, as Andrew headed into lap 5 the driver behind attempted to overtake around the outside of Druids Hairpin, catching the front wing of Andrew’s BARC Formula Renault on the exit.
Heading down into the fast left hand Graham Hill bend, Andrew’s front wing broke sending it under the car and Andrew off the circuit at high speed into the tyre wall.
The impact destroyed the right hand side of the car, breaking off the right front wheel. Fortunately Andrew was able to walk away from the accident with only minor bruising but the damage to his BARC Formula Renault was to survive to repair in time for Race 2 of the day, leaving Andrew with an early end to another difficult weekend.
Commenting after his Race 1 exit, Andrew said:
“It’s hard to find the positives after today, after Friday (Practice) I was full of confidence for a good weekend and some solid points but it’s just not gone our way again. We lost out to changing track conditions on Saturday and getting the best of the tyres which put us at the difficult end of the grid for today (Sunday)”.
“Like Donington my start was great and I’d moved up four places by the second lap, I went defensive into the hairpin (Druids) and the driver behind tried to go around the outside and clipped my front wing on the exit which then broke under load heading into Graham Hill. It’s easy to point the finger in these situations but at the end of the day it was a racing incident and when your qualifying in the mid field you risk incidents like this, we were just unlucky that it broke the front wing and sent me into the tyres”.
“Our main concern now is repairing the car in time for Oulton Park (Round 5/6 BARC Formula Renault Championship) and how much it’s going to hurt our budget, but I know the team will do everything possible to make it happen and I have to say a huge thanks to all the SWB Motorsport team for their support this weekend and of course to my sponsors TXM Recruit, Railcare, Raildoor Solutions, Danbro, Albatros UK, EFD Corporate and Podium Motorsport”.
Round 3 and 4 of the 2011 BARC Formula Renault Championship will take place at Oulton Park on Saturday 28th of May. www.motorsportvision.co.uk/oulton-park
