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Ian competes in the FR2000 class for the final race of the season!
For the final weekend of the season, Ian stepped up to the FR2000 class of the BARC Formula Renault Championship with Welch Motorsport - thanks to help from sponsors Invotec and The Cubicle Centre.
After being denied any extra testing mileage before the race weekend, Ian knew he was in for an uphill struggle. However, when the 50 minute practice session was soaking wet, making it even harder to get aquainted to a new car, all hopes of a strong weekend were realistically gone.
In both qualifying sessions Ian showed he had the pace but finding the vital clear lap was proving difficult. After being as high up as 6th position in both sessions, Ian faded to 14th and 13th respectively, although this meant he had still beaten seven other more experienced drivers in this class.
For race one, Ian made an average start and lost a place in the first corner before making up a further four places at Druids hairpin before being pushed off onto the grass and down to 19th position. Ian got his head down and passed several cars during the 20 lap race, two of which were breath taking, out braking manouveres into the first paddock hill bend - eventually netting an eleventh polace just outside the points.
Race two saw another difficult first lap with Ian ending up in 14th place at the end of lap one. Despite Ian being on comparable pace to some of the front runners he was unable to find a way through and eventually finished the race in this position. Ian commented "It's been a difficult weekend, I really have been on the back foot since Friday but I've enjoyed the challenge although it would have been nice to bring some more posituve results back with me. I have learnt a lot this weekend that I will be able to put to good use next season when I will hopefully step up to this class full time."
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