CRS Racing started their 2010 season on a positive note as the team recorded a double podium finish at Thruxton through their lead driver Harry Tincknell, who took the chequered flag in third place during the weekend's two races, while series debutant Robert Foster Jones had a solid start to his Formula Renault career with a pair of top ten finishes.
A wet qualifying session decided the grid for the first session and saw the team send out their drivers with a set of new wet tyres first before changing them to used wet weather tyres. The strategy call backfired on them as Tincknell ended the session as the teams best placed driver in seventh, Foster-Jones twelfth, Victor Correa in fifteenth and Michael Lyons twentieth and last on the grid.
The second qualifying session saw an improvement for Sidmouth based Tincknell and Southend-on-Sea based Foster-Jones, Tincknell setting the third fastest time while karting graduate Foster-Jones set the ninth fastest time.
Tincknell recovered from his bad qualifying session to finish third overall in the opening race, while Foster-Jones climbed up from twelfth on the grid to eighth at the flag.
The second race of the weekend saw Tincknell secure his second podium after a race long duel with Fortec Motorsport's Tom Blomqvist, Tincknell coming out on top at the end of the 16 lap race.
For Foster-Jones, he backed up his eighth place in race one with a tenth place in race two, a better result could have been achieved if he hadn't run wide on a corner and dropped back to eighteenth place. Foster-Jones wasn't fazed and drove a mature race to recover tenth at the flag.
For the returning Lyons, he wanted to make amends from his opening race DNF with a sublime drive in race two to finish inside the top eight having started eighteenth on the grid, showing his potential with some excellent moves to climb up the field.
For the teams fourth driver, Formula Renault UK debutant Victor Correa, the opening weekend of the 2010 Championship was his first time at the super fast Thruxton airfield circuit. The Hampshire track can be a daunting prospect for a new driver and with the practice and qualifying sessions being held in changeable conditions, the young Brazilian driver had a successful weekend with results of thirteenth and fourteenth.
Andrew Kirkaldy, the CRS Racing team Director is pleased with the teams progress at Thruxton: “All the drivers did a good job this weekend, I'm pretty happy with our performance even though as a team we didn't get it 100% right in qualifying. We took points though which is what counts when you are going for the championship.”
Photo credit: Jakob Ebrey Photography
