Curnow back in the running at Brands (9 June 05)

The 2005 Formula BMW UK Championship moved to Brands Hatch for Rounds 7 and 8 on the weekend of 4th and 5th June. After a disappointing outing at Rockingham a fortnight previously, this was to be a crucial meeting at which Ross and the Promatecme/Soper Sport team would see whether their work was starting to take them in the right direction again.

Testing took place on the Thursday which dawned fine and dry. The team began with a set up which seemed to work well and during the course of the afternoon, developed it further to put Ross 4th fastest by the finish. “My tyres were starting to go off towards the end but we’re very pleased with the day,” Ross said afterwards.

Photo: MJP Media Images Ltd

The first qualifying session on Saturday saw the whole grid separated by just over a second with Ross finishing 5th, a couple of tenths off pole. Quickest in the second sector, he was losing time in the first and the team worked on this to try to achieve a better compromise for the whole lap. This improved the car and enabled Ross to qualify 3rd in the afternoon session.

The start of Race 1 on Sunday was confused and several drivers including Ross saw the lights flicker for a moment. Having edged forward a few inches, he realised what had happened and stopped, and then made a clean start without penalty on the green. He grabbed 4th place by the first corner, which he then had to defend for the next 5 laps before pulling out a gap. This enabled him to start to close in on Oliver Turvey in 3rd but he eventually held position to finish a comfortable 4th by the end.

In Race 2, Ross held 3rd cleanly off the line and started to move up on Sam Bird and Jordan Wise ahead. He wasn’t able to challenge, however, and ran a consistent race to hold 3rd throughout, finishing ahead of Dean Smith in 4th.

The two races gave Ross 22 points, only two other drivers bettering this, and was his best weekend since the season opener at Donington. This moves him back up to 5th in the Championship, just one point behind 4th. Ross said: “I’ve never gone really well at Brands before so this is a good result for us and sees up amongst the front runners again. We’re all very encouraged.”

The next two races will be at Oulton Park on the weekend of 18th and 19th June with testing on Friday 17th.

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