Curnow salvages points from Thruxton thriller (5 May 05)

The 2005 Formula BMW UK Championship came to Thruxton for its 3rd and 4th rounds on the weekend of 30th April/1st May. Ross Curnow and the Promatecme/Soper Sport team were justifiably confident after a podium finish at Donington and an outstanding test session at the Hampshire circuit 4 weeks earlier which Ross had dominated. Weather conditions were very different this weekend, however, with much higher temperatures and this posed problems for some of the teams. Ross explained: “At Donington, we had the benefit of a full day of testing just before qualifying which helped us find a good set up. Because we’re one of the new teams, we don’t have data from last year so we’ve started with the settings which gave us such a good test result here a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, they’re just not working for me this weekend and I’m struggling with oversteer into the Chicane and understeer into the Complex.” Whilst only 0.5 sec off pole, this put Ross 7th in the morning qualifying session and 6th in the afternoon after some changes. “I’m disappointed but I think we did the best we could in the time available”, said Ross.

Photo: MJP Media Images Ltd’

After a good start in Race 1, Ross made up a couple of places in the first corner but then got involved in a thrilling, slipstreaming scrap with 5 or 6 other cars which saw him slide back down the order as he struggled with the handling problems. He regained places, however, with some crowd-pleasing moves at the Chicane and the Complex and this saw him challenging Antunes for 6^th place in the closing stages, almost taking him on the line. “I was quicker than him into the Chicane but I just couldn’t get quite close enough to overtake.”

Ross’s start in Race 2 was not as good - “I got too much grip on the rears”. However, he came round 5^th at the end of the first lap but was passed on lap 5 by Wise, Walker-Hansell and Antunes which put him again in the middle of a tight bunch fighting for 4^th to 10^th position. As the group continually changed places much to the delight of the Thruxton crowd and those watching on TV, Ross passed Walker-Hansell into the Chicane on lap 7 but was outdragged at the exit onto the start/finish line. On the next lap, he had the crowd cheering when he repeated the manoeuvre, this time outbraking two cars round the outside. On lap 9, Joe Osborne then got involved in a frightening accident at the Chicane which catapulted him over the tyre barrier before being restrained by the catch fencing. This brought out the safety car and much to the relief of those in the Chicane grandstand, Joe jumped out and into the waiting ambulance which took him off for a check up - a tribute to BMW’s safety design brief for the FB02 chassis and the driver protection aids. Three laps were added to the race and after the restart, Ross finally took Dean Smith up the inside into the Complex and this gave him 6^th position at the finish.

Ross was feeling a range of emotions at the end of the day: “This has been a very strange weekend. I’ve had two of my most exciting races, I’ve never overtaken so many cars under race conditions and yet I’m coming away with only 10 points - 10 valuable points nevertheless. We struggled with the set up here although Thruxton is an unusual circuit and we must remember that it’s only the second race weekend that we’ve worked together as a team. We’ve slipped back to 4^th position in the championship but it’s early days and we’re still very confident about the future. We’ve got 16 races to go and a lot can happen during the next few months!”  

The next two races will be at Rockingham on the weekend of 21st/22nd May with testing on Friday 20^th.

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