Race Report - Spa

Whoever said that Clio Racing was easy!

We felt a little disadvantaged as the official test day at Spa had been snowed off back in March. However, there is nothing like driving a race car around the finest race circuit in the World and soon Rob was enjoying the high speed circuit, although clearly not as much as his competitors. The local Belgium boys were really on the pace and it was clear that the weekend was going to be hard work.

For the first qualifying session we had made a number of alterations to the car, although time would tell to whether or not these were positive changes. Qualifying in the afternoon proved to be a disaster when the bonnet worked loose and smashed the windscreen. This was on the out lap. Having returned to the pits for immediate repairs, further disaster struck on the second out lap and the throttle cable broke. The boys from Team RSA therefore had a long walk to the back of the grid for Race 1!

In Race 1 Rob was unfortunate to get baulked on the start and with a lack of straight line speed, it was inevitable that a low finishing position was to follow due to a lack of overtaking opportunities. Rob eventually crossed the line in 19th place out of 25 runners.

For Race 2 and in front of the huge crowd of 75,000 spectators qualifying improved significantly and after a number of changes to the car Rob was able to qualify in 16th place. The car was nearly three seconds faster than it had been the previous day. Clearly the changes made by Team RSA were now heading us in the right direction.

A fantastic race followed following a great start and initially Rob was able to hold 12th place before dropping to 13th. However, with 2 laps to go a safety car period followed and after some confusion as to whether or not the race was to finish under safety car conditions, Rob lost 2 places on the final corner to finish in 15th place.

However, there were further encouraging signs, particularly with the changes made to the car and the team are happy, as well as confident that a top ten place can be acheived in the next round.