Warwick laments missing double
DARREN WARWICK’S brilliance behind the wheel of the Dallara F399 carried him to the second National round win of his ever-more illustrious career.
But he left feeling he had missed the chance of a remarkable double.
Beating the best hill climbers in Britain bar none, Warwick won the first of two top-12 run-offs before making an error and having to settle for fifth in the second on a superb day’s racing on Le Val des Terres.
‘It was there for the taking. I should have had the second one too, but I made a small mistake around Terres House, dabbing the throttle with my toe when I should have hit the brake. It threw me wide.’
But while it was joy for the 43-year-old fireman, who must now be ranked up there with Guernsey’s finest four-wheel racing legends – the Priaulxs and the Peter Wilsons of this little world – it was another tough day at the office for his friend and huge rival, Nick Saunders.
Trying to cope with a badly damaged thumb, Saunders wrapped his car into the banking just beyond the finish in qualifying and will now struggle to get the Reynick racing again before the end of the season.
On the eve of the event Warwick had said a low 27 would be good enough to win it and he was not far off in that assessment.
His 27.59 won him the opener and Will Hall took the second with a 27.78, which pipped Richard Spedding, double winner on the same hill a year ago, by a mere nine hundredths.
Warwick won it on the back of some brilliant third sector driving where nobody could live with his car handling.
‘I was a bit rusty this morning and with the rain overnight it was a bit slippy in the middle and I was a second off my best in qualifying, but we put on a new set of tyres that we had from Jersey, threw everything at it and got a result.’
More in Monday's Guernsey Press.
