JTR Motorsport’s Jayde Kruger has taken a shock second victory of the Rockingham weekend in the Dunlop MSA Formula Ford Championship of Great Britain. The South African retired from the second race of the meeting with a failed fuel pump and suffered a misfire throughout the final race of the weekend but still managed to take his tenth race win of the season.
Kruger started on pole with his team mate Max Marshall in a feisty mood in second place. After building a slight but comfortable lead Kruger felt his Mountune EcoBoost engine start to struggle in a way remarkably similar to the fuel pump failure of the morning action.
“It started to misfire half-way through,” a relieved Kruger explained, “so it became the longest race of my season… I thought it was going to be the same as this morning’s race; it was the exact same sort of problem and luckily I think Max was slightly nice to me initially when I slowed up. Then I just got my head down and tried to give myself room to compensate for when the car slowed down. It cleared in the last three laps but there were stages of the race when I thought I was going to have to park it.”
The victory brings Kruger back to within 17 points of the championship leader, Harrison Scott from Falcon Motorsport. The JTR driver’s morning retirement had opened the gap from a level pegging to 24 points with seven races left on the calendar. Marshall continued on to take second place after trying a move on Kruger when the leader slowed. He maintains he was unable to close the 1.6 second gap at the line.
Scott took third place, securing the bottom step of the podium in all three Rockingham races, after losing out to Marshall at the start.
The scrap for the win in the Scholarship class was the highlight of the race with Ricky Collard for Falcon going head to head with Richardson Racing’s Louise Richardson and Michael O’Brien from MBM Motorsport. Richardson held the initial advantage but Collard pushed the pace thoughout the race until an exhaust issue forced his retirement on lap 13. O’Brien held a watching brief as Richardson and Collard battled, taking over the task of keeping Louise on her toes when the Falcon Mygale withdrew.
Richardson was delighted with her maiden class victory saying, “With Ricky right behind me and then Michael I couldn’t afford to relax for a minute; if I made a small mistake they were right at me, so it was a case of keeping my head together and, when Ricky pulled off, of not allowing myself to relax. I’m just over the moon, so thrilled. It’s been a steep learning curve and things are starting to come together.”
Series debutant Clay Mitchell in the third JTR run machine took seventh ahead of Radical Motorsport’s Juan Rosso who finally bettered his team mate James Abbott after a torrid start to the weekend. Chris Mealin for Falcon and SWB Motorsport’s Australian racer Greg Holloway rounded out the runners. Ashley Sutton didn’t start the race after piercing his radiator during the second race and overheating his engine.
