James Holman reports on a tough weekend at Pembrey
Qualifying Practice
Lots of repair work had been made on the car from the incident at Croft, therefore time was at a premium to get the car set up properly and ready for practice. Heavy overnight rain produced a wet track, and the team didn’t have time to change to wet tyres. In the end James only completed two timed laps, the second of which was only good enough for 13th place out of the 24 runners.
Round 13 - Race 1
James lined up 13th for the first heat, and after an incident at the start line, James was forced to take avoiding action heading off onto the grass, and with the outfield absolutely drenched, it meant that by the time he got back on track, the JRA Motorsport man rejoined in last position as the safety car came out. Once the race got back underway, James set about working his way through the field and by the end of proceedings had got up to 9th place which was a good fight back.
Round 13 - Race 2
James lined up in pole position for the 2nd race, getting a great start immediately heading off into the lead followed by Belgium’s Guy Fastres. Guy took the lead on lap 2, then on lap 3 the red flag came out bringing a temporary halt to the action. The race was then declared a 6 lapper, and on the restart James pushed Guy hard, eventually nipping by with a great overtake heading into the extremely fast Honda curve. Then 1 corner later it was all over. A right rear suspension failure under braking meant that the JRA Motorsport driver was out, and a promising result was lost.
Round 13 - Final
Unfortunately there was other mechanical damage sustained within the suspension failure and the car was unable to take to track for the final.
Round 14 - Race 1
With lots of work having taken place on the car overnight, everything was ready, as James lined up 3rd behind the front row of Jean-Michel Poncelet and John Mickel. James settled into P2, then at the beginning of lap 2 was demoted to 3rd by Jean-Michel. However two laps later he hit back to take 2nd place again, then set about closing the gap to Mickel. Over the next few laps James was eating into the lead, and on the last lap, starting one second behind, he threw everything at it, just missing out on victory by 0.12 of a sec. On that last lap James broke the lap record by 0.2 of a second, creating a little snippet of history for the team.
Round 14 - Race 2
James started 16th for the second heat, making a good start and progress was brisk, reaching P6 by lap 4. However at the beginning of lap 5 James suffered a big engine failure, which put him and the team out of the rest of the meeting.
The team was very disappointed, when James was forced to retire he had once again been the fastest on the circuit. However this is a source of great encouragement ahead of the final rounds at Brands Hatch on November 2nd-3rd, but also left the team frustrated at what could have been.
Lots of repair work had been made on the car from the incident at Croft, therefore time was at a premium to get the car set up properly and ready for practice. Heavy overnight rain produced a wet track, and the team didn’t have time to change to wet tyres. In the end James only completed two timed laps, the second of which was only good enough for 13th place out of the 24 runners.
Round 13 - Race 1
James lined up 13th for the first heat, and after an incident at the start line, James was forced to take avoiding action heading off onto the grass, and with the outfield absolutely drenched, it meant that by the time he got back on track, the JRA Motorsport man rejoined in last position as the safety car came out. Once the race got back underway, James set about working his way through the field and by the end of proceedings had got up to 9th place which was a good fight back.
Round 13 - Race 2
James lined up in pole position for the 2nd race, getting a great start immediately heading off into the lead followed by Belgium’s Guy Fastres. Guy took the lead on lap 2, then on lap 3 the red flag came out bringing a temporary halt to the action. The race was then declared a 6 lapper, and on the restart James pushed Guy hard, eventually nipping by with a great overtake heading into the extremely fast Honda curve. Then 1 corner later it was all over. A right rear suspension failure under braking meant that the JRA Motorsport driver was out, and a promising result was lost.
Round 13 - Final
Unfortunately there was other mechanical damage sustained within the suspension failure and the car was unable to take to track for the final.
Round 14 - Race 1
With lots of work having taken place on the car overnight, everything was ready, as James lined up 3rd behind the front row of Jean-Michel Poncelet and John Mickel. James settled into P2, then at the beginning of lap 2 was demoted to 3rd by Jean-Michel. However two laps later he hit back to take 2nd place again, then set about closing the gap to Mickel. Over the next few laps James was eating into the lead, and on the last lap, starting one second behind, he threw everything at it, just missing out on victory by 0.12 of a sec. On that last lap James broke the lap record by 0.2 of a second, creating a little snippet of history for the team.
Round 14 - Race 2
James started 16th for the second heat, making a good start and progress was brisk, reaching P6 by lap 4. However at the beginning of lap 5 James suffered a big engine failure, which put him and the team out of the rest of the meeting.
The team was very disappointed, when James was forced to retire he had once again been the fastest on the circuit. However this is a source of great encouragement ahead of the final rounds at Brands Hatch on November 2nd-3rd, but also left the team frustrated at what could have been.