BTCC Thruxton to suit Ciceley's pace

Welsh disappointment for FUCHS-backed Ian Joel

FUCHS-backed Ford Escort Cosworth rally driver Ian Joel, together with long-time co-driver Graeme Wood, had a short, but interesting, involvement on the second round of the BTRDA Championship, the Plains Rally, in Wales last weekend.

The first two stages in the Dyfnant Forest complex in Mid Wales were slippery to begin with following heavy overnight rain, but the warm sunshine soon turned the stages dry and dusty.  After SS2, Joel and Wood were lying in an excellent eighth overall out of the 117 starters.

Stage 3, Gartheiniog, was where it turned pear shaped for the duo just over half a mile from the start.  Ian, with foot hard to the floor, slid the car wide on a tightening downhill right hander, and unfortunately the car became stranded on a small banking on the outside of the corner.  With neither marshals nor spectators nearby to help get the car back on the road, the pair were not able to re-join the rally.

Plains rally podium for Naylor / Lawrence

Last weekend’s Plains rally in north Wales saw an end to Fuchs-backed Pat Naylor’s run of bad luck in his Mitsubishi Evo 9 when he and co-driver Ian Lawrence finished with a podium place in class NR4 behind class leaders Russ Thompson and Andy Murphy in their similar car.  Naylor / Lawrence were unfortunate in suffering a puncture on the first Dyfnant stage, but were then able to pull back their small time loss to finish 8th overall and 2nd in class.

Spanish rally success for Rochdale’s Brown / Stringer

Steve Brown and Paul Stringer took their Nissan Micra to north east Spain last weekend to take part in the invitation-only Rallye Festival Trasmiera.  After three days of hot, hard competition the pair were delighted to finish the event, their first of 2018 in the Nissan Micra.

Success in Sweden for CA1 Sport team

Martin Wilkinson took the CA1 Sport team to Sweden last weekend to look after Fredrik Åhlin and Joakim Sjöberg on the South Swedish rally, the third round of the Swedish national championship, based in Albert, two hours south of Malmo.  The FUCHS-supported team reported that the event was largely uneventful, as Fredrik dominated the event winning all the stages without real drama.  The crew now lead the Swedish championship having two firsts and a second to their name.

Martin and his crew are now on their way to the south of France to service for Rhys Yates in his Skoda Fabia on the Rally Antibes, based on the Cote D’Azur, this next weekend.

This is a busy time for the team, as they have already despatched Tom Preston’s Skoda to Barbados for the two events there starting next weekend, and this coming weekend, they are testing with David Bogie on Friday, before re-prepping his Skoda overnight ready to compete on the Scottish rally on Saturday.

FUCHS Lubricants MSA Historic Rally Championship

Seeding changes announced for the ATL Carlisle Stages rally, the next event on the FUCHS-sponsored MSA Historic Championship.

Clerk of the Course Nicola Heppenstall has announced that the ATL Carlisle stages in June will adopt the recently announced changes to the seeding guidelines that the MSA have issued to all rally organisers.  Previously all competitors had to be seeded in numerical order based on their previous results, regardless of that cars performance, age, or number of driven wheels.

Now, competitors in the FUCHS-sponsored MSA Historic Rally championship will run first on the road in front of the four-wheel drive cars, which means that the roads will be in good condition, and less likely to damage the historic cars.

Ciceley Motorsport

Ciceley Motorsport are back in BTCC action this weekend at Round 3, Thruxton, the fastest track in the country and a circuit that really suits our Mercedes A-Class’s. Lead driver Adam Morgan goes into round 3, second in the overall Championship standings after the first 6 races. Three fantastic drives at Donington saw him dead last in race 1 to winning race 3 and setting two fastest laps. Adam also won the Dunlop “Forever Forward” award for the most overtakes in one day.

Adam has had a busy few weeks since Donington he has raced a rapid 500 bhp Ford Capri for Rik Wood which unfortunately broke down, he drove over 100 laps of Oulton Park shaking down the teams new Mercedes GTS AMG GT4 car and was immediately on lap record pace, despite it being quite a busy track day. Adam left Oulton and went straight to Silverstone to race a TCR car in the Britcar Endurance series. We rented him out to Maximum Motorsport! and even though he missed the practice sessions due to being at Oulton he was granted dispensation and able to go straight into qualifying on Saturday morning. Adam and team mate Stewart Lines not only won their class but, also brought the car home in 3rd place overall a fantastic achievement when surrounded by GT3 and GT4 cars.

Team-mate Tom Oliphant's results have not really shown his raw pace. Tom is still to have the rub of the Touring car green! Round 1 at Brands Hatch Indy is daunting for every BTCC driver no matter how long they have been racing and 3 races around a track that is only a mile in length is some introduction to the world of Touring cars. At Donington Park Rd2 Tom really proved his mettle. After a brilliant qualifying Tom got stuck in and secured his first top ten finish the highlight of the day for me was after contact he was called into the pits for repairs, the team repaired the car and got Tom back out on the same lap, from dead last Tom had worked his way up to 13th before further contact ended his day. 13th from a full grid of 32 cars around Donington was an immense achievement and he had the pace throughout the day to finish on the Podium.  Tom should be rapid around Thruxton and with no weight in qualifying, should be in the hunt for a proper qualifying position and thereafter the chance to bring his car home at the front of the field.