Morris retains 3rd
place in the BRDCF4 title stakes after another podium visit at
Oulton Park
report and photos by
Rob Allender and Marion Allender
With the Qualifying and 3 races all
compressed into one day, WRDA member Seb Morris who was 4th
fastest in the early morning qualifying session at a sunny and
blisteringly hot Oulton Park, pronounced himself happy with his
performance. ‘I can do something from there, as there is only a
few tenths between us and pole! More importantly my main rivals
Charlie Robertson & Jake Dalton are behind me and some way
back!’ Series points leader Robertson would have to start from 7th
place and 2nd place Dalton would start the first 12 lap/20
minute race, way down in 11th place!
Catch him if you can
(photo left)
At the start of the first Race,
urged on by an 80 strong army of fans, family & friends, Morris
settled into 4th place, which he quickly made into 3rd
place. However later in the race, he came under extreme pressure
from Ross Gunn, which he successfully resisted, to take another
podium place, “My tyres started to go off after 5 laps so I
backed off a little, and they came back to me. We will have to
see if we can find out why that happened!” However, the good
news was that Charlie Robertson was sidelined early on, and
would score no points in this race. So the post race scores
meant Jake Dalton, although he finished 7th in race
1, was now the points leader with 175 points, whith Seb Morris
was in Joint 2nd place on 166 points with Jake
Hughes! Charlie Robertson had dropped to 4th place,
still on 164 points.
Hear Sebs Podium Interveiw
(above) Plenty of support for Seb
(below)(Seb gets strapped
in for Race 2)
In
the 2nd race of the day featuring the top 8 drivers
reversed, Dalton would be on the front row with Seb Morris
starting in 6th place, which he occupied early
on, before profiting from some good luck to move up to 4th
place, after the 2 drivers ahead clashed at Old Hall Corner,
leaving one car stranded and the other way back! Even so Seb had
to defend his position for most of half the race, from Ross Gun,
Jake Hughes and others, which he did with great determination!
Afterwards Morris and the Hillspeed
engineers were locked in very intense and earnest discussions
about what could be done to improve the performance of the car
for the final race, where he would start in 6th place
again.
Seb
sums up after race 2
Meanwhile, Charlie Robertson made
full use of his DNF in race one, by starting from the pit-lane
and setting the fastest lap in race 2 on his way to a lowly 14th
place. However this meant he was able to use the quirky
qualifying procedure for race 3, to start from pole position!
However Robertson was not able to convert his pole position to a
win and eventually finished in 3rd place. The race
was run by Ross Gunn, with Jake Hughes 2nd.
Seb finished 7th after
starting 6th, but as a small compensation, he was 2
places better off than the erstwhile points leader Jake Dalton
who finished in 9th place!
So the new
points table shows that
Seb is still in 3rd place, but now with 198 points,
and
is only 14 points
away from regaining the title lead. However Ross Gunn,
who scored well on the day,
is a substantial 50pts behind in 7th place,
having had nothing like the steady points finishes
that Morris has achieved in the
previous races.
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