Oulton Park nightmare for Seb
THRUXTON was not good for Sebastian Priaulx, but Oulton Park was simply bad.
The consequence of which is that the young Sarnian has in a few weeks slipped from British F4 title challenge to seventh place and a massive 103 points behind series leader Kiern Jewiss.
While Jewiss and Double R Racing romped to victory in round 12 of the Championship certified by FIA, the young Guernseyman failed to finish to complete a miserable weekend which had seem him lack pace in qualifying and in the opening two races.
Mechanical failure in race 12 meant that he has to park up on the side of the track, which came after taking ninth in the ITV4 televised race earlier and 10th in Saturday’s opener.
Little went right for the Arden Motorsport driver whose maiden season is faltering significantly after such a promising start.
In the televised event his front wing got hit on the opening lap and caused some issues with the car’s balance.
‘I pushed hard as I could, but ninth was the best possible result,’ he tweeted later.
There were similar sentiments after Saturday’s opener.
‘A really tough end to the day with 10th in race one. The pace wasn’t there that we expected and I couldn’t make any progress.’
Testing at Croft last week suggested an improved performance by the No. 11 car but practice and qualifying did not go to plan, as Priaulx admitted.
‘A frustrating session all-round. I didn’t get the lap time together and then had some issues as the session went on.’
Priaulx now has two months to stew while Arden Motorsport try to rectify the speed issues for when the series resumes at Rockingham on 11-12 August. That is the first of five remaining meetings.
