Race Report - Irish Formula Vee

Anglesey 5/6-7-8

Ken Elliott suffered a tough weekend at Anglesey in Wales for the Vee’s two away races. Looking to stamp his authority on the championship during the two away races much as he did last year, Elliott arrived in confident mood only to come away with a handful of points after a disappointing run. His only consolidation was that his main championship rival suffered a similarly bad weekend.
This all went wrong when qualifying that was held in drying conditions, was flagged early, resulting in Elliott recording a lap less than the majority of the field at a time when the circuit was at its quickest. This meant that Elliott would line up on row 4, which was not a major problem as the Welsh circuit was thought to be abundant with overtaking areas.

Elliott made an uncharacteristic mediocre start and when attempting to make up ground into the ultra slow Rocket complex, ran wide and lost further ground to the leaders. Immediately, Elliott set about making up for his error as he was now bordering on the outer fringes of the top ten. The JH004 looked once again to have good race pace as Elliott easily latched onto the chasing pack but was caught out at the first corner which resulted in an off course excursion and more lost time.
He spent the rest of the race on the back foot, trying everything he knew and some that he didn’t to regain lost time and with it, valuable championship points. After a hectic 12 mins racing, Elliott brought his Dunlop Leastone home a disconsolate 8th but with it he grabbed 3 possibly crucial points.

Sunday’s race saw Elliott keen to make amends for the previous day and he burst out of the blocks to establish himself in the top 5 on the opening lap. A coming together towards the end of the opening lap, when Elliott was caught out by a slow runner saw the handling of the JH004 affected for the remainder of the race but despite this, he managed to sneak his way into 4th place by mid distance. Hampered by the ill handling, Elliott could do little about the leading trio, and was having enough of a job defending his 4th place to worry about them anyway.
Having lost out at rocket as the race drew to a close, Elliott was again undone by a timekeeping error when the race was ended 2 minutes earlier than its official slot, much to the annoyance of team boss Paul Heavey. This prevented any chance that Elliott had of usurping the current championship leader.
Both the team and Ken put this disappointment behind them straight away, as both he and Paul Heavey packed up and headed straight for the legendary Spa Francochamps circuit where they were to race Kevin Gillespie and Mark Reade’s DH01’s in the British monoposto championship.

The next Formula Vee round is at Kirkistown on the 26th of July, where Elliott needs to reignite his championship campaign as he runs the risk of losing touch with the championship leaders as the championship draws to a close.