Niall Murray had a frustrating weekend during the latest rounds of the Ginetta Junior Championship at his Douglas Motorsport team’s home circuit, Rockingham.
Murray headed into the weekend knowing he needed race wins to put him back to the top of the championship table, however contact in both races left him off the podium in both.
The opening race saw Murray get a superb start, but sitting directly in the middle of the tightly bunched field heading into the opening corner, the Irishman was unable to avoid receiving contact from a rival, damaging his steering lap.
Knocked down to tenth at the end of the opening lap, Murray was able to fight up to seventh by the end of lap two, but could make no further progress until the final lap, when he passed team-mate Andrew Watson to finish sixth.
The second race saw Murray dive up from seventh on the grid to fourth at the end of the opening corner, before moving up another place at the same corner on the next lap. In a tight three-way fight for third throughout the race, Murray got the place back on the final lap but contact at the final corner dropped him to fourth.
“Naturally it’s been a disappointing weekend for us at this crucial point in the championship,” said Murray. “We really needed two podium finishes this weekend at the very least to keep us in the title race. However, there is still four rounds to go, and as we saw with Sennan finishing down the order yesterday, anything can still happen. So as the saying goes, its not over until the fat lady sings, and I’m certainly not giving up!”
