Aaron Mason ended his emphatic 2013 APR Volkswagen Racing Cup campaign in fine style, securing a maiden series championship and concluding the season with a victory at Donington Park.
Mason only needed a single seventh place finish to secure the 2013 title, doing more than enough with second place in a truncated opening Donington encounter shortened to just three racing laps due to an outbreak of incidents down the field.
The result secured Mason the title which had previously eluded the AWM/Warranty Direct driver – having three times finished third in the championship – and the Doncaster racer said that he aims to defend his crown in 2014.
“Looking back over my five seasons in the championship, the whole thing has moved on and become a lot more competitive,” said Mason. “Every year we are all trying twice as hard and bringing developments to the cars: being in the top six is hard and it gets harder every year.
“I think this season has been the hardest of all, but the whole team has done a solid job with the cars – in particular Gary Evans, who is full-time on maintaining them – and we have had our fair share of luck when things have gone a bit bad, like my qualifying accident at Snetterton, which could have written off the weekend for me, but I managed to come back and bag two podiums.”
The final race of the season was one of the 2013 campaign’s highlights, a fabulous five-car dice for victory ending with Mason securing the last spoils of the season after a race-long duel with fellow Scirocco driver Martin Depper.
“Martin and I had a great fight,” Mason added. “When you have respect for each other you are able to race hard and give each other enough room. It was a brilliant race.”
Depper echoed his rival’s opinion of their end-of-season battle, saying: “It was a fantastic pleasure to race Aaron and an honour to be beaten by the 2013 champion.”
The new champion turned his focus towards the following season, saying he will return to defend his crown in 2014 after a strong year for the single-make championship.
He added: “We are going to do another year. This is a great place to race: a well-run championship, and well policed, and the competition is getting better and better so we are able to get some good racing out there.
“We are still learning with the Scirocco and I’m sure we will move forward. We have a new car underway, and will start again with it and see if we can improve.”
