A promising start for Ladell

WDE Motorsport's Charlie Ladell has had a promising start to his career in the Courier Connections Renault UK Clio Cup, with the 17 year old finishing consistently in the points since making his debut in the championship at Oulton Park for rounds 7 and 8.

After another strong weekend during rounds 15 and 16 at Rockingham, I caught up with him to find out how he's found the switch from the Fiesta Championship to the Clio Cup.

"It's a steep learning curve" he told me, "the quality of the drivers in the Clio Cup is as high as any other championship in the country so I've had to adapt quickly in order to compete with the rest of the grid, and also the Clio's different to what I've been used to driving in the Fiesta Championship so it's taken me a little while to adapt to it but I'm definitely getting there now and the results are starting to come our way".

With strong results becoming more consistent, Charlie admitted that the turning point in his season came at Snetterton; "My most memorable round so far has got to be Snetterton, I had really good pace there and managed to take a 4th place finish, my best result of the season to date, and I just hope that I can continue to finish strongly and possibly go one step further".

Charlie made his debut in the Clio Cup with WDE Motorsport, a team being run by championship veteran Paul Rivett, but he explained that his partnership with the team has been going on longer than this season. He told me "I've been working with WDE Motorsport since the start of 2012, and I won the Fiesta Junior Championship with the team that same year so I have a great relationship with everyone there, Paul is great to work with too and I definitely benefit from his vast experience, not just from the championship but his race craft as well, and he's really helped my progress as a driver, certainly much quicker than if I was doing it on my own."

After joining the season part way through the championship, Charlie has confirmed that he will be running in the championship full time next season with WDE Motorsport, presumably alongside team mate and manager Paul Rivett, and is hoping that he will be able to battle for race wins over the course of next season. As for the end of this season at Brands Hatch in four weeks time, Charlie's ambitions are more modest; "We've had a great season so far so for the Brands finale it'd be great if we could get in the top 5 in both rounds, I'm confident I've got the pace in order to do it, and if I get the chance I'd love to be fighting it out for a spot on the podium".

Written and interviewed by Alan Faulkner
Photo Credit: DR Hurrell Photographs

Clio Championship battle heats up ahead of Brands finale

The fight for the Courier Connections Renault UK Clio Cup took another twist during rounds 15 and 16 at Rockingham, with Team Pyro’s Mike Bushell taking the lead in the championship standings with just two rounds left in the series.

The 25 year old came into the rounds at the Northamptonshire circuit in second place in the championship standings, just 19 points behind SV Racing’s Josh Cook, and looked to continue his recent form after a double podium finish at Knockhill. Bushell managed to do exactly that in qualifying, taking pole position for round 15 by just 0.120 seconds ahead of championship rival Cook, and started on the front row again in round 16 behind Cook. However, it was later revealed that Cook had received a 10 place grid penalty from an incident at Knockhill, meaning he would start 12^th for the first race of the weekend.

Bushell took full advantage of pole position, taking a lights to flag victory in comfortable fashion, crossing the line 4 seconds ahead of 20Ten’s Jordan Stilp, another driver who has been impressive during the course of the season, with SV Racing’s Ash Hand taking the final step on the podium. As for Cook, he was only able to manage 10^th in the race, which was soon promoted to 9^th after Westbourne Motorsport’s James Colburn was handed a 5 second penalty for an incident that occurred during the race. Despite the penalty, Cook had dropped to second in the championship behind Bushell, meaning the SV Racing driver would have to take a podium finish at least to close the gap to Bushell.

Cook started round 16 on pole position ahead of Bushell, but a poor getaway off the line seen him drop to 4^th after the first lap, with Bushell taking an early lead and, like in the first race of the weekend, didn’t look back for the remainder of the race. As for Cook though, thing went from bad to worse as he was one of four drivers that had been handed a drive through penalty for a false start, along with his team mates Alex Morgan, Ash Hand and Clio Cup debutant Simon Horrobin – Ant Whorton-Eales being the only SV Racing driver who had not been handed a drive through penalty; and to add further insult to injury, Cook was forced to retire after issues with his car forced him firstly into the pits, and then in the gravel trap with just two laps of the race to go.

With Cook enduring another miserable weekend, Bushell’s perfect weekend meant that he left Rockingham with a healthy 34 point lead from Jordan Stilp, who is now in 2^nd place in the championship standings after clinching a double podium, with Cook two points behind in third place. Stilp had also taken the championship lead in the Graduate Cup standings, just nine points ahead of Ant Whorton-Eales in 2^nd and ten points ahead of third placed James Colburn, while in the Masters Cup Lee Pattison maintained his lead in the standings, 31 points ahead of WDE Motorsport’s Paul Rivett, who had a strong weekend with a 4^th place finish in round 15 and 2^nd place in round 16.

As the Clio’s are missing for the next BTCC event at Silverstone, the stage is set for what will prove to be an intense showdown for the next driver to be crowned the Clio Cup champion of 2014, with 5 drivers mathematically still in the hunt for the title, although realistically it is between three drivers – Mike Bushell, Jordan Stilp and Josh Cook.

Written by Alan Faulkner

Photo credit: Jakob Ebrey Motorsport Photography    

Frustration for Mealin in Scotland

Falcon Motorsport's Chris Mealin endured a weekend to forget at Knockhill during rounds 19, 20 and 21 at the Scottish circuit, after being unable to secure a spot on the podium in the Scholarship class in all three races, and registering two DNF's over the weekend.

The Manxman was optimistic ahead of his maiden visit to Knockhill, a track which has become an iconic fixture of the ToCA package over recent years, but admits that he was left bitterly disappointed with the way his weekend panned out.

"We really don't know what happened at Knockhill; I did a lot of hard work and preparation ahead of the weekend to make sure I was where I needed to be for Friday practice, and with it being a new circuit to me I knew there would be a lot of challenges and techniques I would have to learn. Towards the end of FP1 I made a mistake at the chicane and my rear suspension got damaged which caused me to spin off into the gravel - I think at the time it was called finding the limits".

He added: "The first race was particularly tricky with the weather, as we had short blasts of rain every few minutes just before we went out on track which made tyre choice difficult; in the end we went out with wets on which was the right call at the start of the race, but towards the end half the track was wet and the other half was dry which made it tough, but it didn't help that I stalled at the start of the race, my first bad start of the year. Trying to keep the wets alive for when we hit the water was another challenge, but I was reeling in the pack and just ran out of time unfortunately".

Despite his run of bad luck at recent rounds, Chris is still confident of a strong finish to the season, and aims to bounce back at the next three rounds at Rockingham. "It's a track that holds good memories for me there even though I've never raced around it before, as it's where I completed my maiden test in the Formula Ford Ecoboost car and with my team Falcon Motorsport - I can still remember begging for another go but at the time I couldn't, however one thing lead to another and here we are nearly a year later coming back".

With the season coming down to the last few rounds, Chris explained what he hopes to get out of them and what he is aiming for; "I think the main aim is to have fun, enjoy them and get everything I can out of these last 9 races, it's gone quick but I've learnt so much. We've had lots of ups and downs over the course of the season but the last three tracks are the ones I'm looking forward to the most - Silverstone has to be the special one really with it being my second home race as I live 20 minutes down the road, and after my huge crash at Thruxton earlier on in the season we all know how I bounced back at my local track Oulton Park so who knows what lies ahead".

Written by Alan Faulkner
Photo Credit: Alan Faulkner