Rally ace Mark Donnelly took victory on his British Rallycross debut. Oliver Bennett was excluded after a fuel infringement just before the Semi-Finals.
In the final which Donnelly started from pole from, he made a good start to hold off a challenge from Julian Godfrey. The pair went line a stern for nearly the whole race and even jokered together on lap 5. Godfrey had tried to pass for the lead going into North Bend when Donnelly ran slightly wide. The pair went side by side down the hill with Donnelly managing to carry more speed into the straight and stayed ahead round the outside. Godfrey then stayed on the leaders tail until the final lap when his pace dropped off on the final lap. This let Ollie O’Donovan close in on the second place driver. However, Godfrey regained his speed and held off the charging Irish driver. O’Donovan had only just made it to the grid after fixing an issue that left him with reduced power.
“Very good. I really enjoyed it. The radio didn’t work in the car so I was trying to look in the tiny mirrors that are on the car to see where everyone was.”
Mark Donnelly
Image Credit: Overtake Motorsport
Tristan Ovenden came home in fourth after bouncing back from a DNS in Q1. Six-time Olympic Gold medalist Chris Hoy completed the top 5. In his second ever rallycross event Hoy just scraped into the final and started from last. He took to the joker lap immediately and was able to pick off some of the drivers ahead to secure 5th. Hill jumped the first start and was forced to take two joker laps. The Mitsubishi driver slotted back into 7th but overtook Mike Sellar to claim an extra championship point. Roger Thomas was the only non-finisher from the final and pulled off the side of the road before the end of the second lap.
The dominant driver of the weekend, Oliver Bennett was disqualified from each qualifying session due to a fuel infringement. His BMW Mini runs on World Championship level fuel and was thought to have dispensation to be allowed to run that fuel type, rather than the championship standard fuel. However, the stewards saw differently and disqualified him, meaning he wasn’t able to race in the final.
“The officials knew it all weekend. We run on P1 [World RX fuel]. Our engine’s not mapped to the Dev 2 [British RX fuel] so we can’t run on it. We had a concession not to score points but obviously for the semi-finals they weren’t happy with that.”
Oliver Bennett
Semi-Final 1
O’Donovan inherited pole for semi-final 1 after Bennett’s exclusion ahead of Thomas and Godfrey. Thomas made the best start and took the lead with Godfrey diving to the joker lap. Godfrey managed to leapfrog first O’Donovan then Thomas when they took their alternate routes. Mike Manning was holding onto 4th place and the last transfer spot into the final. However, with a lap to go his car broke the steering rack which allowed Hoy to immediately close in and pass to deny Manning of a spot in the final.
“We threw it away in the semi-final. We had a fresh air pipe go which left us with no boost”
Ollie O’Donovan
Image Credit: Overtake Motorsport
Semi-Final 2
In the second semi-final Donelly used his pole position to take the lead through the opening lap. Steve Hill slotted in behind with Dominic Flitney dropping to the back after putting out a plume of smoke on the grid. Flitney pulled off the track in the joker lap immediately with a loss of power and the smoke thickening. Ovenden held third throughout the race with Sellar dropping to last from the start. The gaps grew throughout the race with no one able to make a position after the start which gave Donnelly pole for the final.
Image Credit: Overtake Motorsport
In the championship Donnelly leads Godfrey by just 1 point, on 14. O’Donovan sits on 10 points ahead of Ovenden and Hill on 9 and 8 respectively. Knockhill is the next round in 4 weeks time with the Welsh and Irish rounds after that.
Image Credit: Overtake Motorsport
