Kieran Vernon's blog

My goals were very clear for this weekend, and that was to win both races and hope that the championship may luck my way!

Strong qualifying put me 2nd and 3rd on the grid for the races.

Race one was a straight battle between Julian Barrat and myself, in slippery but drying conditions on wet tyres, tactics was the key to the race. We both pulled a strong margin against 3rd place, however Julian had pulled away in the openeing laps.

I managed to start closing him down going into one quarter distance. I then managed to catch him, and with him in my sights, i made sure i kept the tyres cool for the last four minutes of the race.

Once i saw four minutes left on the pit board i started atacking, and with that, Julian went defensive into redgate, i then switched back to the inside on the exit, and ran side by side down the craner curvs, with me on the outside and on the wet line this was very tricky, but nevertheless came out in the lead!

This was a great win for me, crossing the line after a hard fought battle, but it was spencer who took the championship finishing in 4th place. however there was still one more race to go, and i was determined to come out of the season with the most wins.

A good start off the line from me saw me take Julian into the first corner, and exiting the old hairpin, Andrew Smith spun, causing havoc behind. this left me with a 3 second lead at the end of the first lap!

Having broken the tow, i managed to increase my lead by about 2 tenths every lap, back to Julian and Spencer.

But then with my lead up to 5 seconds, coming under the Dunlop Bridge, my throttle cable snapped, a certain win was gone, which would have been my eighth win of the season.

However, all was not lost as with my win on saturday, i had secured second place in the championship.

Moving on, i competed in the Formula Ford Festival, with Inter Motorsport in a Van Diemen, that post will follow shortly.

I would like to thank TFC and Smalley, my sponsors for my support this year and i hope that i can continue a deal with them for next year, in my aspirations to compete in the Formula Ford Duratec class.

Last week i got the chance to drive a Supercharged Lotus Exige around the Stowe circuit at Silverstone. This is part of my Foundation Degree that is run at Loughborough college in association with the Race Drivers Academy.

The Lotus was a great car to drive, very responsive, fast, and very manageable. In my first session, i had Alfie beside me (race instructor). He did three demonstration laps, then i took over. The car was very easy to learn, and Alfie was ery impressed, and said hed give me 95% in my assessment, however my assessment was in my next session.

For my second session, it rained and they very kindly turned off the traction control which was very fun, but a bit of a suprise when i accelerated out of north!

In my assesment i got 95% with straight A?s throught each aspect of driving, so it was a very good day.

During the week i also learnt a lot about race car design and setup, and we also analysed the third year students when they did their runs in a Formaula Ford.

It was a very good week, i learnt alot from it and i met alot of new people. im looking forward to my next week of the course in October.

Kieran