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Consistency the Key to Webb’s Championship Assault
Consistency the Key to Webb’s Championship Assault
Manchester-based racing driver, Oliver Webb showed the importance of consistency, with a show of mature driving in the Donington round of the Formula Renault UK Championship.
Webb’s qualifying went well with him sitting in second for all but the last couple of minutes of the first session. Running desperately low on fuel, Webb missed the last three laps and was dropped to fourth by two very late flying laps from his rivals.
Webb got a solid start in race one, keeping pace with the three in front of him and holding his grid position. Lap after lap Webb was right on the pace and his fastest lap was just 9/100ths off the fastest lap of the race. Webb looked set to settle for fourth, with Championship rival, James Calado posting very similar lap times. Then with just a few laps to go, Calado got on the power too early out of Coppice and span just in front of Webb. The ex-Formula BMW racer just managed to miss his spinning team mate by millimetres and went on to take third.
Qualifying for race two was a frantic affair, with heavy rain and then a drying track throwing the session into chaos. Webb was running second and then pitted to adjust tyre pressures where he promptly dropped to 28th in just one lap. On his final flying lap he was held up by someone exiting the pits and lost nearly a second, but two stellar final sectors mitigated the damage and he started eighth.
Race two was very wet but Webb got off the line well, feeding in the power and allowing the wet weather tyres to do their work. By the end of lap one, the A-level student had made up two places and was sixth. An incident behind him left his nearest rivals some way back and Webb worked hard to get close to the AKA car in front. His hard work eventually paid off and he overtook to take fifth in the race and second in the Championship standings.
Afterwards, Webb was delighted, commenting: “I am happy with the weekend overall, but obviously I would have liked to make it two podiums to really round it off. This season has been a strange one for results and my two biggest rivals haven’t been quite as consistent. It was nice to have Dean (Stoneman) who is leading the Championship finish behind me in race two, because it means I have now closed the gap and got myself into a great position for the title.”
Webb is next racing on the 30th May at Oulton Park, where he is hoping that home advantage will give him the edge to retake the lead in the driver’s Championship.
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