Solid Drive Secures Valuable Championship Points at Snetterton
The fourth round of the Protyre Formula Renault BARC championship took place Sunday 1 August at the Snetterton Circuit in eastern England. Changing weather meant that the first qualifying session, like last time on Croft, was to be difficult for Kasper.
After having driven a dry Friday test it was time to bolt wets on Kasper’s Formula Renault for the first qualifying. With no more than 20 minutes to learn the two miles Snetterton Circuit in wet conditions it came down to a slightly disappointing 10th starting position for the first race. For the second qualifying the rain had left a wet circuit which was starting to dry up as the session started. This time Kasper was running 8th until he decided that the track was dry enough for slicks. With only seven or eight minutes left of the session Kasper came into the pit lane to change tyres. The team got busy changing tyres which, as always with Antel Motorsport, happened very quickly but then they discovered that an oil hose had come off and by the time Kasper was able to rejoin the session on new and very slippery slicks there was only a few minutes left of the qualifying. Kasper managed to put in a good first lap which sent him to fourth position but on the second lap the gear cable snapped and Kasper had to finish the lap and go to the pits in second gear.
When the 17 Formula Renaults Sunday headed out to a dry grid for the first race Kasper and the team was convinced that they had the speed to be in the top five. Kasper made a good start but struggled to make up any positions starting from the outside. After the first lap Kasper was still running 10th and as he attempted to overtake Jake Rattenbury into the Esses he was suprised by Kourosh Khani who saw his opportunity to get passed both of them. Being caught between the two cars Kasper had no choice but to follow them which then meant that he got a poor exit from the right-hander which followed. This gave Andrew Jarman an opportunity to get passed Kasper too. Kasper was able to recover quickly by overtaking Jarman on the next lap after which he was closing in on Rattenbury by half a second per lap and on lap ten was able to get by him too. Meanwhile there was quite a gap up to Khani and although Kasper was closing the gap fast he crossed the line after the 14 laps in 8th one second behind Khani.
After the race Kasper said: “I was surprised to only be 7th fastest in the race. In the Friday test our lap times looked promising. The starting position for the second race is going to help me a lot but if the top five is just as much faster in the second race I will struggle to hold 4th place.”
It was important for Kasper to get a good get away for the second race with the experienced Alice Powell starting just behind him. As the red lights came off Kasper made a quick start and held on to 4th in the first two corners where everybody was staying to the inside. Down the long back straight top five was very close and they all kept to the inside being defensive down towards the left-right combination “Esses” where Kasper in the last moment pulled out of the line to try to overtake the winner of the first race Joseph Reilly. Kasper made the move stick on the outside in turn three and shortly after closed the door for Reilly as the track changed direction. Kasper didn’t have the pace to hold the super fast Reilly behind him for more than three laps though. The pressure from behind did not disappear with Reilly because now Kasper had the two Hillspeed drivers Alice Powell and James Theodore in the mirrors. Even though they were both quite a lot faster than Kasper, he managed to fend them off for the next eight laps.
Towards the end of the race Kasper’s rear tyres gradually got less grip which nearly resulted in a spin in “Esses”, due to which he got a really bad exit out of the right-hander making it possible for Powell to get alongside of Kasper. They now drove side by side through the next two very fast corners with Kasper on the outside and braking into the chicane Kasper had no other choice than to fall in behind Powell to prevent Theodore to pass as well. But within the next lap Theodore also got by and with only one lap to go and a big gap down to Josh Webster in seventh, Kasper took the chequered flag in a solid sixth position.
Of course an 8th and a 6th position was not the result we had hoped to go home with, but it did give some good championship points and Kasper achieved a combined 6th overall for the weekend which is his best score this season. It is a step forward and in the points table Kasper has now moved up to 8th overall.
We are now looking forward to the next race meeting at Rockingham the 11 and 12 September, where hopefully Kasper will have the pace to compete with the top five again.
