DWANE NURSES HIMSELF FOR CLIO TITLE WIN
Jack Dwane claimed the Renault Clio championship in unusual style on Sunday. Andrew Harding took all three race wins, but Dwane was already sufficiently ahead that he only had to finish all three to win. As he had injured his ribs in a car-destroying accident at Brands Hatch last month, he played it safe by borrowing a car and running at the back to maximise his chances.
There was no room for this kind of thing in the F1000 championship, where five drivers still had a mathematical chance of victory going into the final rounds. Defending champion Lee Morgan celebrated his retirement from full-time F1000 with two wins, but race-one winner Matthew Higginson still found himself out of the title running going into Sunday. It was realistically between Matthew Booth and Rob Welham and the consistent finishes of championship-leader Welham were enough to succeed. He needed to be third in race three but he went one better with second spot, having passed first Tom Gadd, then Higginson.
Type R Trophy winner Jake Hewlett also needed a third to prevail over his close rival, Christopher Nylan. They began the weekend with identical qualifying times, but even wins in races one and three could not push Nylan out of reach of Hewlett, who won race two.
M3 driver Graham Crowhurst was significantly unluckier in the BMW Car Club series. He was beaten to the title by Lee Piercey in his E36 after dropping out of the final race with serious mechanical trouble. He had gearbox issues in qualifying and started race one from the back, working his way to second behind double race winner Paul Cook (M3). These were Cook’s first wins of the year.
The Ma7das kept up the close finishes, although Jonathan Lisseter had already wrapped up the title. He was awarded race one after a dead heat with Eddie Mawer. Mawer got his own back with a last-lap pass in race two.
Hot Hatches also featured a two-car frontrunner squabble, between the Honda Civics of Philip Wright and Ryan Polley. Polley had the upper hand initially in both races, although Wright was following him closely, but both times, Wright caught him out with a move in the closing stages.