Kieran Vernon's blog

Donington was a mixed reaction as far as the weekend went, qualifying was our best of the season in p14, with the field being so close this year even being 0.8s off the pace at Knockhill, I still lined up 17th! so 14th was good, but we thought we should have had a bit more pace in the car.

However in race one it seemed our race pace was better, with many battles throughout the race I managed to claw my way up to the top 10 and the battle for 9th, a last 3 laps dash and I managed to pass liroy Stuart out of redgate, and then Rogier De Wit into the chicane, and I took the flag in 9th position, a great result for us to be in the top 10 again.

Race two was looking even more promising, running around p10 once again, working with Fabio Gamberini to work our way up to the next pack, which also had Dan Cammish battling, so it looked like for the first time this season that the Scholarship win was within reach!

With around 3 laps to go, Patrick McKenna spun at starkys, and it caused a lot of trouble for the cars behind, Cammish, De wit and myself had to take the grass, and caused us to spin because it was wet, this in turn damaged our rear suspension as the spin was so violent at around 120mph+!

It was a real shame as from what could have been P8 and a win turned into dead last, but I just focussed on the next race to try and get another strong result, we had put a good lap time in and had qualified just outside the top 10 for race three.

Race three however it rained, and we also had a problem with repairing the suspension, with the lack of our budget meaning we can’t carry many spares, and for an odd component to bent, we had to make do with re aligning it, it made the car tricky to drive in wet conditions im not very familiar in a Formula Ford, however it was good experience to get some wet running, and we still managed to finish in 4th in our class.

The next race at Silverstone should be good, we hope to do some testing before and Silverstone is one of my favourite Venues.

After a best result of 7th at Knockhill the previous round, things were looking to be moving forward with the car and at Snetterton we were hoping for more top 10 results.

Qualifying was a struggle as we lacked a towing partner, all the teams used each other to pull a lap time out, and made it very difficult for us one car teams to get high up the grid, a result of P16 was the best we could do at 1.2 off the fastest time.

In race 1 I made a good start and made some places down the straight, but at the end of lap one I got the smallest of taps from behind in turn one which put me onto the marbles then off the road, I rejoined at the back, but luckily for me the safety car came out.

At the restart I tried to make as many positions as I could on the first green lap, by the end of the race I managed to claw my way back up to 15th, which was a good recovery however I was catching a pack of five cars in front all battling, so it seemed p10 is what could have been..

Race two I started well and had very good pace throughout the race, lapping only 0.5s of the leaders pace, which put me 11th on the grid for race three. I finished 14th however pace was looking good for race three.

Race three was a good result, we couldn’t run the big teams up front however a race long battle with Josh Hill, Gavin Halls and Fabio Gamberini made it very exciting. All of us where nose to tail for the duration of the race. I sat in p13 for most of the race, but on the last lap I managed to take advantage of Hills move on Halls, and I managed to take both of them, coming out of the esses and into the Bombhole, which gave me P11 for the finish.

The next round at Donnington Park is sure to be another strong weekends showing!