Still upbeat after tricky time in Italy
North motor sport with ZOE BURN
CUMBRIA’S Alex Macdowall bounced back from an incident-hit battle to claim his first points of the season in Italy last week.
Macdowall and his Barwell Motorsport team-mates Sandy Mitchell and Rob Collard endured a tough first round of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AMS Endurance Cup at Imola.
The problems began in the second of the three qualifying sessions when Collard suffered an off-track excursion at the wheel of the team’s Lamborghini Huracan and as a result, Carlisle’s Macdowall was unable to contest the all-important final session. This meant they lined up last on the grid – in 52nd place overall and 13th in the Gold Cup class.
Collard got a good start, scything through to reach the top six in class and 37th overall but following a safety car period he was edged off track and ended up beached in the gravel.
The car was recovered and returned to the pits as Macdowall jumped in. Running five laps down in class and nine overall he had a huge job on his hands. He unlapped himself enough to be three laps down and 10th in class when the safety car came out again and ended his run.
Mitchell completed the final part of the race to cross the line ninth in class and 40th overall. While disappointed, the squad did take some solace from posting the fastest lap of the class.
“It was a tough weekend,” Macdowall admitted. “I obviously didn’t get to set a time in qualifying but we showed in the race we had the pace to do a good job.
“Rob put in a really great stint at the start, passing 14 or 15 cars but he got nudged off the circuit into the gravel and that was just the icing on the cake for the weekend going wrong for us, really.
“After the team checked the car over when it got to the pits, checking the brakes and making sure everything was OK, we were five laps down so all we could do was drive around as quickly as we could and hope to take some points – which we did.”
Macdowall will rejoin the Barwell Motorsport squad for round two of the series in June at the Paul Ricard 1000km race in France, where he will be chasing a much stronger finish.
“We’re hoping for a better weekend at Paul Ricard but, generally, the Lambos are a bit off so we need a break with the Balance of Performance.
“For a six-hour race you’ve got to have a competitive car and you need the pace to be there, so hopefully we will have that in France and be in a better position to get our season back on track.”