DOLBY WINS HIS SPURS
The 2010 Superleague Formula & BRSCC season kicked off over Easter weekend at a sometimes wet and windy new-look Silverstone.
With a mixed variety of formulae & classes on show including races for Superkarts,(CIK-FIA Championship) and a couple of races each for Caterham R300’s, Grand Prix Masters, SPEED Series, World Sportscar Masters and classes for Dutch Supercars, a very hectic support programme added up to a total of 16 races over the weekend.
Saturday's action saw the unique pole knock-out aspect of Superleague consisting of the fastest 4 cars from two groups going head to head in a series of 2 car quarter finals, semi finals and final knock-out to determine pole and top eight grid positions. Home advantage was upheld by the cars from Liverpool FC and Tottenham Hotspur FC making it through to the semi-final stages, but both then being knocked out by FC Porto and FC Basel respectively, with FC Basel, driven by Max Wissel, then taking the final.
Raceday and the first race of 2010, saw one of the home clubs take revenge with a popular win for Tottenham Hotspur, driven by Craig Dolby, by an impressive 11 seconds from the AC Milan car of Yelmer Buurman with Duncan Tappy's Flamengo car coming in 3rd.
Race 2, with a reverse grid from the finishing positions from race 1 promised plenty of overtaking. So it was with Craig Dolby producing a storming drive from the back of the grid to take a commendable 4th place, but he was unable to make headway against pole position starter, former F3000, Champcar and F1 driver Sebastien Bourdais in the Olympique Lyonais car. The Olympiacos CFP car of Chris Van der Drift and John Martins Atletico de Madrid car also taking advantage of favourable grid positions to take 2nd and 3rd respectively.
The 3rd and final “dash for cash” race underlined Craig Dolby's dominance of the weekend with a fine victory in the 5 lap sprint. Craig came home home ahead of Max Wissel (FC Basel) with South African Chris Van der Drift (Olymnpiacos CFP) in 3rd.
For lovers of older Formula 1 machinery the Grand Prix Masters series gave an outing for some of the classic machines of the past with a couple of races over the weekend. Bill Coombs Tyrell 009 saw victory in the first encounter, with the Williams FW07C of Kotsuaki Kubote taking second, Kubote then going one better in the second race to take a narrow win (of 0.134 sec) from a similar Williams FW 07B of Anthony Reid.
Martin Short upheld home advantage in winning the first race of the Dutch Supercar GT races in his Mosler, but lost out on the last corner of the shortened second race, to the experienced Cor Euser's Ferrari. Pieter van Soelen and Derwin Belt took a win apiece in the SS2 SP Class races.
The weekend’s racing was rounded off with a World Sportscar Masters victory for the Red/Kelly Lola T70 MkIII Spyder in a race that also included Indycar legend Bobby Rahal in another Lola (of the T212 variety). Unfortunately Rahal’s race was curtailed only 27 laps into the 70 minute race.
A report on the Bookatrack.com Caterham Superlight R300 races will appear here tomorrow.
For more information about Super League Formula (SF) visit:www.superleagueformula.com
Tony Carwithen
