Josh Webster saw his title aspirations dealt a massive blow after mechanical problems at Donington Park lost him crucial ground in the race for the 2012 Protyre Formula Renault BARC Championship title.
Webster had secured his fourth consecutive win during the first race of the weekend, but engine problems went on to hamper his progress in the next two races.
Saturday’s opening race couldn’t have gone any better for Webster, the MSA Team UK driver leading championship rival Scott Malvern from lights to flag to take his fifth win of the season.
On Sunday though, as Malvern scored a win and another second place, Webster was restricted to fourth and sixth place finishes after suffering performance issues.
A rapidly expired fuel pump was believed to be the cause of the problem in race two and was swiftly changed for the final race, but it soon became apparent in race three that Josh was still suffering problems.
The results leave the Nine Group, Admiral Solutions & Support and Integra ICT-supported racer 14 points adrift of Malvern on dropped scores heading in to the final rounds of the year at Silverstone in October.
“We weren’t expecting the problem to be engine related, we thought it was just the fuel pick-up issue”, explained Josh, “Obviously, the weekend overall hasn’t gone to plan and in the last race it was like I was driving a 1.6 and everyone else was in a two-litre. On every straight I was getting passed left, right and centre, we were losing a good 10 or 15 km/h.
“The weekend started really well, we looked set to be top three in every race and winning the first one got things going in the right direction, I was really happy with our performance in that one. It’s not good for the championship we’ve had two less strong results but we need to stay positive and come back fighting at Silverstone where anything can happen.”
