Weekly Motorsport Round-Up #6

It was seventh heaven for starlet Ashleigh Morris in the Scottish BMW Compact Cup Championship.

The FUCHS-backed Scot fought from 13th in the second race of the day at Knockhill to cross the finish line in P8.

And there was better news to follow for Ashleigh as one of her competitors was excluded, pushing her up a place.

After a ding-dong battle with David McNaughton and Andrew Mackie, Ashleigh set her sights on chasing down Stevie King but was not quite able to get by.

Nevertheless, Ashleigh, who finished the first race of the day in 13th after qualifying in 14th, was pleased with her day’s work.

“With the race over I got a phone thrown in my face. It was my dad,” said Ashleigh. “Having not heard from him all day it was good to chat and tell him how I had got on.

“After struggling to get the set-up so that it was more suitable for me, he was really happy with how the day went. Although I wasn’t happy with race one’s outcome, race two certainly made up for it with excitement and results!”

In the British Touring Car Championship, Adam Morgan bagged three more top 10 finishes at Thruxton.

In his FUCHS branded Mercedes-Benz A-Class, Morgan fought off man flu to finish fifth in race one with 48 kilos of success ballast on board.

The second race was frustrating for everyone as a spectacular lap one crash for Dan Lloyd brought out a safety car and a race stop. Morgan lost a couple of places in the process but still managed to clinch some points with a P7 finish.

Morgan started the final reverse grid race in P7 and battled his way through the 16-lapper, coming home in ninth.

Morgan said: “The results weren’t really what I was hoping for after a win here last year, but, looking positively, we had three top 10 finishes and a good haul of points so it was a pretty decent day really.”

In Powerboat GP, SILKOLENE-sponsored Matt Palfreyman of the Mercury Racing Team took fourth place overall despite suffering problems at the Lancashire Grand Prix.

Matt was well prepared following the previous week’s test session at Stewartby Lake in Bedford.

The boat had been running perfectly but Matt only managed to complete four laps in qualifying – just one of them being a qualifying lap. The team spent the lunch break attempting to diagnose the problem.

It was quickly determined that the changes made by the mechanics were unsuccessful as Matt was unable to complete heat one without the gremlins rearing their head once again.

After changing the batteries on the morning of day two, Matt successfully completed heats two and three in third position, allowing him to give the boat a good shake down and build his confidence for the season ahead.

Matt said: “We took fourth place overall which was not ideal or where we wanted to finish, but the team learnt valuable lessons and we’re prepared for our main goal, the UIM F2 World Championships, which commence on June 10th in Kaunas, Lithuania.”

Following his win on the Pirelli rally recently, Fredrik Alhlin has been working hard with his team at FUCHS-supported CA1 Sport to sort out the set-up problems which dogged him throughout the two days of the Pirelli Rally.

Ahlin’s Skoda R5 was wearing out its front tyres at an alarming rate, and, as Fredrik likes to drive his car from the front, this was causing him real problems in maintaining his lead.

Fredrik explained: “We made some minor changes to the front diff on the test day earlier in the week, and the car seemed perfect. However, when we got on to the loose gravel sections in Kielder, there was way too much understeer, and we think that was also causing the tyre wear problem.

“But I’ve got a great team behind me at CA1 Sport, and I knew they would be able to sort it out before the next event.”

Round three of the British Rally Championship is the Scottish rally on May 19th/20th,. Fredrik is looking for a 3rd win of the season, having been successful on both the Border Counties and Pirelli rallies.

Pembrey Circuit in South Wales was the venue for rounds two and three of the FUCHS LUBRICANTS Super Modified class in the BTRDA Rallycross championship last weekend. This was the first time that the revised layout of the circuit had been run, and it proved super-fast (to the delight of the competitors) but also quite tricky to master (not such a delight). Round two was won by Tristan Ovenden in his space- framed Renault Clio V6, who is more often seen on the British Rallycross Championship rounds, whilst round three was the preserve of Tommy Graham in his Zakspeed Ford Escort.