|
||||||||||
| Website design & hosting by BTCCPages. © Copyright 2002-2006 Paul Rivett All rights reserved. |
| Race Report - Round 15 - Brands Hatch | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rivett back with a bang - all too literally! After sitting out the majority of the season, reigning Elf Clio Renaultsport UK Cup champion made his return to the series in round 15 of the championship at Brands Hatch. Taking over at Boulevard Team Racing from championship leader Daniel Buxton, who is now competing in the BTCC, Rivett commented, "It's great to be back in the car. I've been itching to get out there all year, and it's great to have the chance. I feel at home with the team already, so hopefully we can go out and win the Teams championship!" The weekend started well, with Rivett taking no time at all to get on the pace. Setting the quickest laptime in each of the free practice sessions on Saturday, he ended the day almost half a second ahead of his closest rival. With a somewhat different driving style to that of Buxton, the team made set-up changes to the car to accommodate Paul. He added: "We changed the set-up of the car completely. It was very stiff and was bottoming out on all the bumps. That's probably fine on the other circuits, but you have to take the kerbs round here." In the 20-minute qualifying session on Saturday, Paul was edged out by pole by Eoin Murray, citing a small problem with understeer. "It's good to be on the front row", he said, "And it's better to be on the outside of the grid for the start anyway!" When it came to raceday, things did not go quite to plan. "We loosened up the back end of the car after qualifying to try and reduce the understeer we had had", said Paul. "Conditions on were much cooler than for qualifying as well, and there wasn't as much grip on the track." As the lights turned green, both Paul and fellow front-row starter Eoin Murray were passed by quick-starting Oli Wilkinson. As the leaders tackled the Druids hairpin for the first time, the lack of grip was already starting to show, with a number of drivers running wide. Slightly further round the first lap and it Paul who became the next victim of the slippery conditions. Paul said: "As I came through Graham Hill bend, Eoin Murray had a bit of a moment in front of me and I had two choices - I could either back off, which I did, or keep going and probably hit Eoin. As I came off the throttle, the back end got away and I just couldn't catch it." The result was a spin which saw Paul avoid contact with the tyre wall, only to be collected by the oncoming Clio of Mark Davies. A heavy impact followed, ending Paul's race before it had really had a chance to get going. With several cars coming together on the same part of the track, the red flags came out to stop the race and allow the wreckage to be recovered. "I've watched the race again from the live Motors TV coverage and there was Tom Onslow-Cole who had his own accident behind me, and Jonathon Fildes ran a bit wide and a few others went off as well." For Paul, the impact brought back memories of Thruxton last year, where he suffered a similarly damaging accident after oil was dropped at the chicane. Fortunately he was able to escape the car with no more than a stiff neck: "Once Mark (Davies) had hit me, there was fluid spraying inside the car, so I got out of the car as quickly as possible. Luckily it turned out just to be the fire extinguisher, but you can never be too sure!" With the damaged cars cleared away and the contents of Paul's fire extinguisher mopped up, the race restarted, albeit without Paul. Eoin Murray went on to take victory. Not the return to the series that Paul was hoping for, but he heads for the next rounds at Donington Park full of optimism: "It's just been on of those weekends. The team have been great about the whole thing - we'll be back out at Donington, and it's a double header there, so it would be nice to get a couple of strong finishes for the team. Wins ideally, but really anything other than the same as we've had here!" |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
