Matt Allison Takes First Win Of Season In Incident Filled Race
After the Scuderia Vittoria team of Matt Allison and Luke Wright locked out the front row in qualifying on Saturday at Croft, it was the experienced Allison who led to the finish in a chaotic race marred by incident.
Allison made a good start and led into the first corner, but behind him others were not so fortunate in the difficult conditions. Luke Wright, Adam Bonham and Jack Goff all suffering off track excursions resulting in retirement for them all, and a red flag situation while tyre wall damage was repaired. Tom Grice also endured a trip into the tyres which resulted in him making the restart from the pitlane after a monumental effort from the team to repair the car for the race.
The restart saw an unusual situation, as Allison found himself the only car on the front two rows of the grid after Chris Swanwick also failed to make the restart when his car was pushed off the grid with an oil leak.
With the next car being Mark Proctor starting from fifth, Allison took the advantage and drove a faultless race to take the checkered flag for his first win in this seasons AirAsia Clio Cup, and the first win for the new Scuderia Vittoria team.
“I’m absolutely ecstatic that I have managed to get my first win of the season here today,” said Allison. “I made a good start after the red flag which gave me the momentum to make a gap. I’m delighted to get this win not only for myself and sponsors, but the team who have just entered their first season in the series. I aim to carry this confidence on in to tomorrow’s race where I am confident that I can achieve win number two of the weekend.”
Taking a relatively untroubled second place was Westbourne Motorsport’s James Colburn. He slowly began to close in on Allison, but ran out of laps to improve any further.
He said after the race; “After such an entertaining race I’m delighted to claim second. In the early laps of the restart I had to push hard and was able to concentrate on catching Matt. If there had been a few more laps in the race then I think that I would have been able to challenge for my first victory, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case.”
TCR driver Mark Proctor was enjoying his most successful weekend so far, and for much of the race claimed third as his own before he found himself under pressure from Get On Track Developments driver Jake Packun, and Team Pyro’s Josh Files.
File’s made a move on Proctor for position, but contact at the hairpin resulted in a £100 fine, three championship points lost and a three place grid penalty for the Pyro driver.
Proctor continued to an eventual seventh and commented after the race; “The car felt brilliant out on the track this afternoon. I knew that I would be on the pace at the front as the car has been running well all weekend so far. Unfortunately my podium hopes disappeared after making contact with Josh Files at the hairpin but I’m happy to take another Masters win today.”
Despite the battle for third between Packun, Files and Proctor, it was another Team Pyro driver, Aron Smith, who eventually claimed the third spot on the podium having qualified a disappointing 13th.
“I got a good start which I felt was key at the restart,” said Smith. “Early on I pushed very hard as I had a lot of competition from Packun and Proctor. After everyone had settled down I managed to show some good pace. I’m very pleased to be on the podium this afternoon and I will be a man on a mission in the race tomorrow.”
Joint Championship leaders James Dixon and Paul Rivett qualified poorly, with Dixon starting 12th, and Rivett starting 16th and last, 3.2 seconds off the pole position time of Allison. Both drivers found themselves at the back of a mixed up grid as the unusual qualifying conditions caught out several of the front running drivers including Aron Smith and Jack Goff.
Both Dixon and Rivett took advantage of the restart and forced themselves through the field to claim fifth and sixth places respectively. This left Dixon leading the Championship at the end of Saturdays racing and in pole position to win the holiday courtesy of series sponsor AirAsia.
Round nine top ten race results
1. Matt Allison Scuderia Vittoria 9 laps
2. James Colburn Westbourne Motorsport +0.680s G
3. Aron Smith Team Pyro +9.732s
4. Jake Packun Get On Track Developments +10.716s G
5. James Dixon Total Control Racing +11.170s
6. Paul Rivett Lumison BlueSquare Data / Stancombe Vehicle Engineering +11.688s
7. Mark Proctor Total Control Racing +15.508s M
8. Darren Wilson 20Ten Racing Limited +22.751s
9. Tom Grice Team Pyro +23.238s G
10. Josh Files Team Pyro +39.414s
For full race classifications visit www.tsl-timing.com
Photo Credit: Richard Devine
Richard Devine
