Coaching News

04/09/2008

Fauldsport win Caterham Teams Championship

Does it get much better?

Donington Park Caterham Festival and the Fauldsport drivers dominate the Roadsports A races and we finally take the Caterham Roadsports Team Championship with two races to go. All Stuart Faulds and the teams work has been rewarded and I couldn’t be happier that we joined forces.

James Sharrock proved that his win at Silverstone was not down to luck by winning race one here in strong style. It could have been a different Fauldsport storey in race one though where both James and Lewis Hopkins left the field behind until a safety car bunched them all up. The safety car pulled in for a one lap loony dash to the finish. Poor Lewis was right royally duffed up by a couple of very dangerous lunges from desperate drivers, one at the chicane but worst of all at Melbourne loop where video footage proves Lewis had to avoid a totally out of control and frankly stupid peace of driving. This left him down in 5th after penalties but doesn’t reflect his fine turn of form.

Race 2 was very wet and Lewis frankly destroyed the field. James Sharrock stayed with him for a while but decided that holding onto 2nd place in the championship was more important than trying to beat a man with allot to prove. And prove it he did. Finally Lewis held his race lead to the finish despite late attempts at him from Caterham Roadsports Champion and much more experienced racer Phil Broad.

JJ O’Malley also scored his first race win at Donington. All weekend JJ was in his now typical “the talents there but I don’t believe it” mode and finally in the Eurocup feature race he shot off into the distance to collect the biggest trophy any of us has ever seen!!

Also in the Eurocup James Sharrock debuted his new Caterham R300 in a subtle shade of dayglo pink! Euro cup races are 40 minutes long with driver changes for the much faster CSR and C400 Caterhams and as the first pit stops started we realised James was on to actually win the race outright in the wet. All previous plans for him to show us his drifting skills as pre arranged at the start were desperately communicated to him from the pit wall, to keep his head down. Sadly in traffic he was passed fellow R300 driver Jonathan Walker and despite having a proper attempt at taking the lead back in the last 2 corners was obliged to finish 2nd overall in the Eurocup, for which he won nothing… not even a bunch of flowers! As a team though we couldn’t be happier

Trevor Fowell finally broke his dominance in the Caterham Academy by finishing 2nd at Donington. Personally I think its important for any dominant driver to get beaten every now again and knowing Trevor he will come back even stronger, so a good addition to his training.