Alan takes victory at Oulton Park!
A wet weekend at Oulton Park witnessed Alan win Race 1 and regain 2nd place in the drivers championship,
after working hard with the team to solve his car power problems.
Testing on Friday was an extension of the test that the team ran at Silverstone the week before to try
and find the fault with Alan’s car. After several runs and downloading the car data, the team believe
that they had found the underlying problem - a gearbox sensor problem.
Qualifying on Saturday started off dry and then the rain set in but not enough to change to wet tyres.
In the first qualifying session Alan brought the car home to 4th on the grid and after a difficult
second session due to the weather, Alan finished in 7th place.
All the teams started Race 1 on slicks, but as they were sat in the Assembly area the rain poured down
and it was a mad dash on the grid to change to wets. Alan had a good start and tucked in behind team
mate Tom Boardman, but as the water on the track started to increase and so did the accidents, Tom
unfortunately while battling for 1st place, locked up and crashed straight into the tyre barrier on turn
1, which meant that Alan was left to reel in the race leader and on lap 11 took victory and led the
field home to the finish.
"I am very happy that I’ve managed to get another win - this is my second of the year, plus getting the
fastest lap! The team have worked hard to solve the problems with my car and I think that we’ve done it
- and proved it by taking the lead and winning race 1!"
"The last few weeks have been tough because we were stuck as to what the problem with the car was, and
the SEAT Sport technical guys were also stractching their heads, but our testing at Silverstone last
week was worth it and we started to get to the bottom of the problem and managed to solve it within
Friday’s test session - the real test will be when we race in competely dry conditions so I’m hoping
that race 2 will be dry."
Due to the weather conditions and several accidents on track from previous races, the second race for
the SEAT Cupra’s was delayed, but the session was dry. Alan had a poor start and got bulked by the
middle of the field, but after wrestling his way back to the top he was fighting hard with fifth and
four place racers when the officials at Oulton Park declared that the race was to be shortened, which
mean that Alan had only 3 laps left to try and claim a podium place again.
As hard as he tried, Waterworth was a good defender and Alan didn’t quite make it past him, but finished
a respectable fifth place.
"The car felt good in that race, we had a good race pace and believe that we set the 3rd quickest time
of the race, so I know that the car is back up to form. The win this morning gave me the confidence
again in the car to push it hard this afternoon and now I’m looking forward to Donington Park in 3 weeks
time"
2007 Blaupunkt SEAT Cupra Championship
Provisional results after round 10
- Jonathan Adam...177pts
- Alan Blencowe...117pts
- Fulvio Mussi...113pts
- Neil Waterworth...100pts
- Carl Breeze...99pts
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