Manor Competition enjoyed a competitive start to their official Formula Renault 2.0 UK Championship pre-season testing at Brands Hatch in Kent, with all four of their drivers finishing in the top eight fastest runners over the two day session.
Fastest for the team and third fastest overall was series returnee Ollie Millroy, the 20 year old ending the test just 0.053 seconds off the top of the timesheets. Initially working through set-ups on Tuesday, the Claygate-based driver pushed on the next day to be one of only three drivers to dip below the 43 second barrier.
Enjoying an impressive couple of days was 17 year old Formula Renault rookie Jordan King, who finished fifth overall and second fastest of the drivers eligible for the Graduate Cup class in 2011. After setting the fastest time of the Manor quartet on Tuesday, King's progress on Wednesday was halted after an excursion at Paddock Hill Bend.
Reigning Formula Renault BARC Champion Alice Powell finished just behind in sixth overall. The 18 year old, who will also compete in the Graduate Cup battle this season, finished just over 0.2 seconds off the outright pace, despite running on very old tyres throughout the test.
Completing the Manor line up, just 0.4 seconds off the outright pace, was 20 year old Josh Hill. The Formula Ford graduate produced his best lap of 43.325 seconds in his final outing on track to finish eighth in the timesheets.
Commenting on the test, team co-owner Tony Shaw said: “We're pleased with how everything went at Brands. Ollie was right there at the top and on combined sectors he should have been fastest of all but the breakage to the front wing flap prevented that. Josh did very well considering the electrical gremlin on his car, to be within 0.4 seconds of the pace having coped with that was a great effort.
“Jordan did look as though he could be in the top three at the end after such a terrific job on old tyres on day one, without his off at Paddock we're sure he'd have been right there. Alice too did a fantastic job, she put in a lot of laps with really worn out tyres and although she didn't quite get the best from her new set her time was still very quick.”
Manor will be out on track next at the second official Formula Renault pre-season test at Croft in North Yorkshire next week.
