Chris
Mealin endured a mixed weekend at Croft in the latest rounds of the Formula
Ford GB championship.
The
Manxman suffered from a coming together in race 3 of the weekend with
Scholarship rival Connor Mills at the hairpin, which put a dampener on what
could have been a promising weekend for the 20 year old.
Mealin
qualified 9th for the first race of the weekend and 8th
for the final race going off the second fastest lap times of the session, and
was able to secure a 7th place finish in the first race of the
weekend, and finishing 2nd in the Scholarship Class behind Ashley
Sutton who took 2nd place overall. He managed to achieve the same
result in the second race of the day, making it two podiums out of two for the
Scholarship, again finishing behind Sutton who won the second race of the day.
However,
the weekend ended on a sour note as far as Mealin is concerned; he made a good
start to the race, moving up to 6th after lap 2 and was beginning to
show some good pace, but dropped down the order on the same lap after a coming
together between him and Mills at the hairpin, as a late lunge down the inside
failed to pay off for Mills who caught the rear left of Mealin’s car and sent
him into a slide. Fortunately Mealin was able to avoid contact with any other cars
and came home 9th , a result which seen him finish outside the
Scholarship podium places, with team mate Ricky Collard taking the final step
on the podium in 8th place.
Despite
three top 10 finishes, Mealin was disappointed with how the weekend ended; feeling
slightly aggrieved with the result of race 3, but is confident of bouncing back
at Snetterton after the summer break. “The last time I saw him in my left
mirror [Mills] was on the exit of the right, it’s just that I had the four of
them behind me so I knew if I took the wide line in and left the door open I
would have been pushed wide by one and they all would have gone through, that’s
why I stayed in the middle”.
“He
wasn’t even half a car width up the inside when we touched; it was his front
right which hit me so I’m disappointed really. This weekend we were aiming to
chase down the top 6 but I didn’t have a good qualifying session which then
made the weekend a whole lot harder from then on really”.
After
an impressive start to his debut season in the Formula Ford GB Championship,
Mealin will be hoping to pick up where he’s left off from the first half of the
season and will be looking to go from strength to strength in the Falcon
Motorsport machine.
Written
by Alan Faulkner
Photo
Credit: Alan Faulkner
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