Race Report - Formula 5

Mondello Park 17/8-5-8

Daniel Polley continued his strong run of form in the Formula 5 series to win the first of two rounds at Mondello Park’s prestigious 40th anniversary event last weekend while John Downey improved on his recent run of second places to go one better and snatch class victory in the second of the two rounds.
Qualifying was a frustrating time for the works team when Kevin Gillespie and John Downey decided to get intimate with each other on the international loop after just two flying laps. Polley showed no ill effects after missing the last round in Kirkistown and posted an impressive time to snatch the class pole with Paul Heavey second and Mark Reade posting third quickest time. The youngster was struggling with a fuel issue which caused an intermittent misfire at certain parts of the track.

Reade made a flying start in round one and latched onto Polleys tail as the field went out of sight on the opening tour. It must have been a day for Leastones getting into one another as Reade got an excellent run out of turn three but was caught out with the speed differential and tagged the back of Polleys car, breaking the teenager’s front left suspension.
Polley barely felt the contact and continued on his way, enjoying a nice cushion thanks to the chaos behind. Kevin Gillespie’s bad luck struck again when he was forced to take avoiding action on the first lap, breaking a driveshaft in the process. All the time, Heavey and Downey were embroiled in a fierce battle over the runner up spot, which aided Polley’s getaway.
Downey tried every line possible (including some one’s that aren’t) but Heavey’s vast racing experience led to his car being exactly where his rival needed to be. This intense battle continued hammer and tongs for the duration of the race and Polley just extended his gap to a comfortable 3 secs before easing off and controlling the gap. With 5 minutes left on the clock, the race was red flagged with a number of cars parked in dangerous positions. Given the timetable constraints, it was decided to call a result at that point and send the car’s into parc ferme.

The start of race two saw a sizeable startline shunt which brought out the red flags. Paul Heavey entered the pitlane suffering some damage from a separate startline incident and while the team issued some makeshift repairs which allowed Heavey to take the restart, the team boss ground to a halt on the opening lap. Polley continued where he left off and took the lead into turn one while Downey made a great start and gave chase immediately. The gap began to reduce with each passing lap until Downey was finally in a position to attack and wrestle the class lead from Polley.
It looked as though the crowd were set for another tight battle when Polley’s throttle cable failed on the main straight. This gave Downey a comfortable lead in the closing stages and he just paced his way to the chequered, setting fastest lap of the weekend along the way.

Behind Downey, Reade and Gillespie, starting from the back of the grid after the previous days misfortunes, had made great progress on the opening lap and would remain in close quarters for the majority of the race. Reade led the way in the early stages, enjoying a slight gap until a safety car period eroded it. Gillespie’s experience then shone through as he grabbed the place off his younger team-mate soon after the restart and that is how it would remain until the chequered flag.
The class now look forward to the next round at Mondello in three weeks while Paul Heavey heads to Pembrey in Wales next weekend to do battle in the 750mc’s Formula 4 championship, a class in which the DH01 impressed throughout 2007.