SV’s James Weston concluded his maiden season of car racing in the fledgling Michelin Clio Cup Series on a high, achieving a career-best qualifying result and matching the leaders for pace on his home Brands Hatch Indy circuit (21-22 September).
The Tunbridge Wells racer squeezed more and more performance from his SV-prepared Clio Cup racer during Friday’s free practice sessions on the 1.22mile Brands Hatch Indy circuit and was quickly on the pace.
Weston, aged 25, excelled on home tarmac and recorded the fifth fastest time in qualifying for Round 7 with a significantly reduced deficit to the front row of the grid.
Light rain in the preceding minutes to Saturday’s opening Clio Cup Series encounter led to a notable reduction in grip levels, creating a lot of uncertainty among the drivers as they streamed away from the grid.
A poor start from the third row resulted in Weston getting swallowed up by the pack on the short rise to Paddock Hill Bend, where he then span to the tail end of the 14-car field after dipping a wheel onto the slippery painted kerbs.
However, a brisk recovery brought Weston back into play. The Tunbridge Wells resident knuckled down and hinted at what could have been by equalling the leaders’ pace as he clawed his way back up to ninth position.
In Sunday’s qualifying session to determine the starting order for Round 8 – the final race of the inaugural Clio Cup Series campaign – Weston achieved a season’s best third-place.
Having lapped the world-famous Kent circuit in a highly respectable time of 53.591s, the SV driver occupied second place on the timesheets for most of the session, until late improvements from Andy Jordan and Finesse Motorsport’s Peter Bennett relegated him to third.
Unfortunately, Weston’s over eagerness got the better of him in the race, as excessive wheel-spin away from the start dropped him to fifth.
Determined to recoup his lost ground, Weston surged up to the tail of Procom Team Racing’s David Pierce during the opening four laps, only for the rear-end of his Clio Cup racer to step out at Surtees.
Weston lost heaps of time while spearing off backwards into Brands Hatch’s in-field but pulled off an admirable recovery to finish seventh, just two tenths of a second adrift of sixth-placed Simon Hunt.
“The results weren’t there, which is slightly frustrating, but my pace definitely was,” said an enthusiastic Weston. “I got up to speed quickly and really enjoyed being at my home circuit. Both qualifying sessions went smoothly and to end the year with a season’s best third place grid slot was awesome. They were by far the best qualifying sessions I’ve had!
“Unfortunately, my starts were lacking for different reasons – I got bogged down in Round 7 and the rain that fell just before the start made the track really slippery, while I was a bit too over eager on the throttle pedal and span my wheels in Round 8. I’m delighted with the way I recovered in both races – I just knuckled down and my pace suggests I would have been knocking on the door of the podium if everything had gone to plan.”
After a successful inauguration, the Michelin-backed Clio Cup Series is set to become a fully-fledged championship in 2014, providing prospective tin-top racers with a solid foundation and acting as a feeder series to the headlining Renault UK Clio Cup, which runs as part of the illustrious support race programme for the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship (BTCC).
Weston is taking a lot of positives from his maiden season of car racing in the Michelin-backed series, saying: “I’ve seen a massive improvement in my pace, as I was four seconds off the leaders’ lap times at the start of the season and I’m now within half a second. Having backing from a top-line team like SV and input from Danny Buxton has been invaluable and I couldn’t have done it without them. We still ended the season on a really big high and it stands me in good stead for the 2014 campaign.”
SV Director, Danny Buxton, added: “I’ve been impressed by James’s progress this year and I’m hopeful about his future in the sport. The fact he’s so close to the front-running pace after only four race weekends and no testing is a testament to his natural ability and suggests he will be a force to be reckoned with in 2014. It has been a pleasure working with him.”
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