Mixed fortunes for Joey at Silverstone
11.05.2004 by AltoSport
The weekend at Silverstone was a story of mixed fortunes for Joey in the Formula Renault Championship.
Going into the weekend in third place in the standings, qualifying one turned into an absolute nightmare. With the session just a few laps old, and with the track wet but slowly starting to dry, Joey lost the rear of the car coming through Priory and was unable to stop the car spinning. "I just rolled into the gravel trap with hardly any speed, but the F! spec gravel is very soft and very deep, and the car was beached: end of qualifying for me".
From his then third spot in the timings Joey could only watch as the track dried and the times fell for him to finish a lowly 23rd in the order for race one.
"It was so disappointing as I had been second in testing, and that on a lap where I had lost time". From his grid 23 Joey made steady progress up to 13th until lap six when an incident in front of him at the Abbey hairpin saw him unavoidably run into the back of James Murphy's car. The impact took off the left half of the front wing and holed the nose box. "From that point it was a question of defending all the way to the flag. I just couldn't get round the corners properly, but the straight line speed was still there. Those last eight laps were a nightmare, but I managed to pick a few points up for finishing 16th".
Qualifying for race two went much better, again track conditions improved throughout the session and Joey finished a relieved but still disappointed sixth. "It was all about the last lap in that session. We elected to go straight out for the whole session on slicks thinking that it would take time to get heat into the Michelins, but those who swapped their wets for slicks half way through got better runs at the end as the tyres were fresher. It could have gone either way, and it was hard one to call".
The race itself was uneventful, save for a coming together of the leading pair half way through which enabled Joey to finish fifth overall. "After doing more than half of the first race with no effective front wing the tyres were pretty much trashed, as they had been overworked so much. As a result the car was handling poorly, and I just couldn't push when I needed to".
The result leave Joey in 4th place in the table, but he will be looking to improve that situation at Oulton Park on the 22nd and 23rd of May. "Oulton is one of my favourite tracks, although I haven't raced a Renault there yet. There are fourteen races left and that's plenty of time to hit back".