News & Features

Castle Combe Report: Round 9

20 June 2010
Scott Pye's fifth win of the season looked in a certain amount of doubt as the lights flashed to start round nine, for the pole-sitter lit up his Jamun-prepared Mygale's rear wheels just a little too enthusiastically, provoking massive wheelspin. Fortunately for Scott, those around him - his team-mates Josh Hill and Emil Bernstorff, plus Daniel Cammish in the JTR Mygale - failed to profit from his error, with Hill and Cammish slotting in behind the Australian on the run through Folly and up Avon Rise. Danish driver Bernstorff suffered a very poor start, dropping back to 10th on the opening lap.

Right in Cammish's wheeltracks for fourth was championship leader Scott Malvern, whose opening lap more than compensated for fuel pick-up problems in qualifying which left the Cliff Dempsey Racing Ray pilot seventh on the grid.

Pye quickly put his startline drama behind him to ease into a half-second lead over Hill, and then on the third lap Josh got it all wrong at Quarry Corner, made slippery by dropped oil from Mark Harper's retiring Mygale, and fell back to fourth behind Cammish and Malvern. Malvern seized his opportunity to secure second, again at Quarry, on lap four: "Both Cammish and Hill made the same mistake," said Scott. "There was oil down at Quarry and they went in too quick and locked up. I hung back and drove past…"

By this stage the other Scott was 1.4s up the road, and there was little Malvern could do to rein in Pye. "I'm not sure if we had a problem or whether it's simply that the Ray doesn't suit Castle Combe," said the English Scott. "But second from seventh on the grid is a pretty good result after the problems we had in qualifying."

Pye eased out his advantage to nearly four seconds by the chequered flag, and was more than pleased with win number five and a return to the podium's top step after a disappointing time earlier in the month. "Zandvoort was a bit of a disaster for us, so it's great to get back on top," said Pye. "It was pretty much the perfect race and the car was awesome, so all credit to the team."

After his early-race mishap, Hill recovered quickly to displace Cammish from third and then hung on to the final podium slot despite race-long pressure from Enigma Mygale pilot Antti Buri. Cammish's race deteriorated quickly as he struggled with a brake pedal problem, and then he missed a gear going through the Bobbies chicane which led to the hotly pursuing Bernstorff hitting the back of his car; both retired with suspension damage.

Buri and JTR driver Tio Ellinas were the quickest men on the track in the late stages of the race as they battled over fourth. Indeed Cypriot Ellinas not only broke the four-year-old circuit lap record with his 1m 06.418s lap, but also recorded the first-ever Formula Ford 100mph racing lap of Castle Combe. Buri held on to fourth, a tenth of a second ahead of his pursuer at the line.

Zandvoort victor Dennis Lind started 12th in his Fluid-prepared Van Diemen after a coming together with another car; the Dane did well to fight through from there to sixth at the flag, ahead of Dan de Zille's Minister Mygale, which he passed on the fourth lap. De Zille was seventh ahead of young Brits Jake Cook and James Tucker, with returnee Chrissy Palmer claiming 10th in the Guest-class Juno.

Raysport's Tristan Mingay led the Scholarship class from start to finish and was a good half-minute ahead of the only other class finisher, Mexico's Dani Domit. With Luke Williams' Juno pulling off and out with an alternator problem after just three laps, Domit's score secured for him the class points lead.
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