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Croft Kicks Off Webb’s Winter Wonderland

Knutsford based racer, Oli Webb took to the windswept Croft circuit for the first round of the Formula Renault Winter Series last weekend.

The Winter Series provides novice Formula Renault drivers like Webb, some additional experience before continuing into their second year. In the spirit of gaining as much circuit and car time as possible, Webb opted to do the general test session on the Thursday before the event. This proved to be a disastrous decision, when Thomas Hylkner lunged across the track into the pit entrance, straight into Webb. This dangerous and illegal move wrecked Webb’s car and lost him an entire day of running.

The lost day on circuit played havoc with Webb’s preparations, with his new brakes not bedded in and his new almost totally unused wets. This didn’t set Webb up well for the qualifying session, which was heavily interrupted, with no less than five red flags in 15 minutes. With four minutes to go, Webb still hadn’t set a time due to interruptions and had to go for it. Despite being in a less than ideal heat cycle on his tyres, he posted a time good enough for 4^th. He continued onto the following lap but pushed just a little too hard, trying one last time to better his previous mark and ended up 8^th on the second run.

The Winter Series is treated like enhanced testing by most competitors and Webb was using the opportunity to try out different techniques and set-ups. With this in mind he tried a brave move at the first corner in race one and unfortunately it didn’t pay off, with four cars not able to pass through the tight first turn at once. The move left Webb in the gravel and by the time he got back to the circuit, he sat 13^th. With his customary vigour, Webb fought back through the order, passing a car every two to three laps ending up back in 8^th.

Race two saw Webb starting 4^th and looking to get onto the podium as soon as he could. Unfortunately a driver behind him got a perfect start, leapfrogging a number of cars including Webb. Now 5^th Webb immediately came back and re-took 4^th place and started to set up a move for 3^rd. The following lap Webb went for a brave outbraking manoeuvre, but the 3^rd placed man held his nerve and the Formula BMW graduate outbraked himself, allowing Tom Armour past. Two laps later Webb regained the place and then found himself fighting of the attentions of European Formula Renault driver Felix De Costa.

De Costa, passed Webb into Sunny in and the North West based driver then fell back as the rain got heavier. As the race wore on, Webb’s wet tyres, which were new at the beginning of the race began to give him an advantage. Suddenly the A-level student was all over De Costa’s gearbox and going over the line was wheel-to-wheel with the Euro Series driver and only inches behind him.

Webb is back in action next weekend at the Rockingham Motor Speedway, the only bowled circuit on the calendar. Webb goes there full of confidence having broken the Formula Renault lap record for the circuit in testing.