A day of fierce fighting saw Devon Modell kick off the second half of The Courier Connections Renault UK Clio Cup season by making positive progress on the Snetterton ‘300’ circuit (2 August).
The round started with frustration for the Westbourne Motorsport driver, acknowledging the team was suffering a few setbacks with the car around the Norfolk-based circuit, unable to find the cause of the problems. Qualifying for race one and two saw the Maidstone native set the tenth and 11th quickest times respectively.
Come race one, it was a matter of staying on track and out of trouble in order to progress through the field. By the end of lap one, Modell was up into ninth place and charging ahead.
At the halfway mark of the race, drama began to unfold around him. Contact was inevitable as the field fought for position, but the 23-year old held strong to move into seventh and come away from the day with a smile on his face, positive about the progress the team had made from yesterday.
“It was an interesting race,” said Modell. “There was lots of overtaking and fighting, which was positive. I managed to keep nice and close to the guys ahead. The car was much better, we changed a lot of things and I think we fixed the problems on it. We have gone from being two seconds off, to being able to race and mix it with the top guys. If the rain had come about ten minutes earlier, it would have been interesting.
“We had a bit of unfortunate contact, which dropped us back a place or two, but we feel much more positive now than we did after qualifying. We need to fix a few things after the contact, but all we want for tomorrow is to continue improving.”
The second and final Courier Connections Renault UK Clio Cup race is scheduled to begin at 11.10 on Sunday (3 August) and will be broadcast live and in high definition on ITV4 and ITV4HD.
For more information on Devon Modell and his racing activities, please follow@Devon_Modell on Twitter.