Tough Croft Outing For High Flying James Dixon
Going into the Croft rounds of the 2011 AirAsia Clio Cup UK, TCR driver James Dixon was tied for the overall lead with Stancombe Engineering driver and former double Clio Cup Champion Paul Rivett. Croft proved to be a weekend with both highs and lows for Dixon, who endured arguably the toughest meeting of his season.
Saturdays qualifying produced somewhat of a topsy-turvy grid, with Dixon, as well as Rivett, qualifying well down the field. The difficult conditions meant that the second or third laps completed in many cases would prove to be quickest. As Dixon hadn’t posted a suitably quick time by then, he had missed the optimum tyre window and had to settle for 12th on the grid. With co-championship leader Paul Rivett behind him though, all was not lost.
The first race on Saturday saw James produce a stunning drive from 12th, to haul himself through the field to claim a top 5 finish, and with it the overall points lead going into Sunday. After the early red flag, the number of cars in front of him not making the restart propelled him to 8th on the grid and from there he eventually finished just over a second shy of the podium.
Sunday’s race didn’t prove to be as fortunate for the Kent driver, as after climbing upto 6th by lap 4, contact with Jake Packun resulted in a spin and a drop back to 14th place. Despite trying to mount a recovery, more contact at the hairpin on lap 11 this time with Team Pyro driver Josh Files, ultimately ended in retirement for the TCR man with damaged steering.
“It’s not been a brilliant weekend for us”, said Dixon. “The damage was done in qualifying really where we didn’t get it right and the races were very tough from there. There was a lot of contact, in the second race in particular, but we have to look at the positives. I’ve learned a lot this weekend on the mechanical side of things with the car so that’s good. I’ve definitely upped my game there.”
“I’d like to say a big thank you to my sponsors Weidmuller and ABP Heating for travelling up to Croft this weekend to watch me race. It was a long way to come, and I am disappointed I wasn’t able to give them a win or a podium this weekend, but I’m very grateful for their help and support – without them I wouldn’t be on the grid at all.”
The weekends events saw Dixon drop to third in the overall standings, but with just 7 points separating himself, Aron Smith in second, and leader Paul Rivett, there’s all to play for going into the next round at Snetterton.
Photo Credit: Jakob Ebrey
Richard Devine
