NUTTALL PROVES TO BE A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS
Stephen Nuttall set out his stall as the man to beat in this year’s Caterham Seven UK championship with two wins and a second at Donington Park.
The newly adopted slick tyres weren’t required in Saturday’s opener as Nuttall splashed to victory from Henry Heaton and Gordon Sawyer. Yellow flags then thwarted Nuttall’s planned last-gasp attack on James Murphy in a drier race two, before he survived contact with Sawyer to win the third from 310R graduates Greg Monks and Murphy. Pete Walters (twice) and Lars Hoffmann were victorious in the concurrent 310R races.
Caterham Academy champions
Taylor O’Flanagan and Tom Cockerill split the wins in two action-packed Roadsports races in which Domenique Mannsperger and Hugo Bush also starred, while the 270R sessions were claimed by Will Rossetti and, in dominant fashion, Blair McConachie.
Kevin Mills Racing will be eyeing back-to-back Formula Ford National championship crowns after new recruit Alex Walker was a double winner on Sunday. Having qualified only seventh in the worst of Saturday’s wet weather, Walker climbed to third in the first race as conditions improved.
He then quickly hit the front in race two and was untroubled by a mid-race safety car, before starting the reversed-grid encounter from eighth. Third within half a lap, he then topped a tasty scrap with Luke Cooper’s Swift and the Medina of Rory Smith for his second win. Festival winner Smith had claimed the opener before getting shuffled back after contact with team-mate Jamie Sharp in race two. Low Dempsey Racing’s Max Esterson was another teenager to impress, with two feisty podiums, while FF1600 veterans Chris Middlehurst and Joey Foster endured a catalogue of woe in all three races.
Dave Cockell was denied a double victory in Modified Fords when his Escort Cosworth’s gearstick broke in the opener. He then thundered through from the back of the grid in the sequel, passing race one winner Wayne Crabtree – in Dave Abrahams’ Subaru-powered RS200 – soon after half distance.
In its first weekend as a fully-fledged championship, the CityCar Cup had 23 novices among its 38-car field but it was veteran Pickup racer Nic Grindrod who scored a brace of dominant victories.
Preferring the less greasy conditions of the race, Rob Fenn’s Lotus Elan won the AMOC Jack Fairman/Innes Ireland Cups race from fifth on the grid, chased home by Ian Dalglish’s Lotus 17. Nigel Jenkins’ Ferrari 458 was untroubled in the GT encounter.