Race Report - Nurburgring

NURBURGRING ROUND 4

For Round 4 of the Belgium Clio Cup Championship the Team endured a fraught week with transporter problems and a 13 hour journey to the world famous Nurburgring track in Germany.

It was always going to be a tough weekend with a German contingent entering this as a ‘one off’ race and benefiting from local knowledge of the circuit itself. The Team were however confident after the recent run of lackluste results and were looking forward to their Third World Series by Renault encounter. These events draw vast crowds and the German’s are particularly knowledgeable and enthusiastic when it comes to Motorsport.

With only seven laps of free practice run on the Friday and no knowledge of the circuit, Rob was pleased to be in 15th place of the 28 runners. There was genuine optimism of being able to qualify for the first time this season and in the top ten.

For qualifying the team had not taken into account the possibility of oil pressure problems as well as an increase in pace from their competitors. The team were therefore disappointed to qualify towards the end of the field and while both Chris and Jason set to work in eliminating the engine problems, Rob spent more time on learning his way around this particularly difficult Grand Prix race track. It was interesting to note that the boys from Advent Motorsport were also struggling with a lack of pace, due again to a lack of local track knowledge.

In what was a rather processional Renault Clio race Rob was enjoying a mid field battle, but made a small mistake going into turn six and understeered off into the gravel. Although he was able to extricate himself from the gravel and continue to fight his way through the pack, he finished in a lowly 20th position.

For the second race, in what was a good battle between five cars for a position in the mid field, the oil pressure problems returned dropping him down to an eventual 19th place.

Team RSA are however building a valuable database of knowledge about these foreign circuits and this will hopefully leave them well placed to battle in 2009 when they hope to run a two or three car team in this hugely competitive Championship.