The final qualifying session of the 2009 Universal Racing Services Formula Ford 2000 Championship was held in soaking wet conditions at the Castle Combe circuit in Wiltshire. Despite Ian not visiting the circuit in its current configuration, he was quickly on the pace. Unfortunately, traffic slowed Ian during the drier middle part of the session but he still lined up second on the grid. With the top three on the grid all covered by less than a tenth of a second it was lining up to be an excellent race.

With the weather constantly changing all day, tyre choice appeared to be a tricky one; Ian opted for the safe choice knowing that just one point was enough to secure the title. Once on the grid it was obvious that Ian's safe choice of wet tyres was the wrong one but as only the pole man, Tom Pope, and 3rd place driver, Josh Fisher, had gone for slicks it would prove not to be too costly a mistake.

Ian was out gunned off the line by the 4th place man, Andy Huxtable, after Fisher had stalled on the grid. This meant that Ian had slipped to 3rd place with Pope starting to get away into the lead already. At the end of the 2nd lap, Ian made his move past Huxtable into Camp corner but Huxtable was able to pull back along side up Avon Rise making Ian go around the outside into Quarry corner. With Ian now up to 2nd place, he set off after the leader knowing this was his only hope of a win as his wets would soon start to over heat.

Ian closed the gap down to 0.4 seconds at the end of lap 3 with the quickest lap of the race at that point and even having a few goes at taking the lead. By lap 7 though Ian was really in trouble with his tyres and was falling back at over 2 seconds per lap, subsequently losing second position on lap 9. Third place and the final step of the podium was where Ian finally finished, this was more than enough to clinch the title but ironically this was Ian's worst finish of the season - not a bad statistic though!

Picture of Ian in car