Dan Zelos has ruled himself out of contention for the 2015 Ginetta Junior Championship title after a tough outing at Rockingham last weekend, and has vowed to go all-out for race wins in the final two meetings of the season.
Zelos, who hasn’t taken a race win since the corresponding meeting at Rockingham twelve months ago, returned to Corby in optimistic mood having taken a podium finish on each of the previous two meetings of the season.
Issues with his rear dampers restricted Zelos’ preparations in Friday practice, and as a result he was left a disappointed seventh in qualifying on Saturday, with the focus on moving up the order in the weekend’s two races.
The opening race saw the 17 year old climb up the order well to finish fourth, a position he held for the majority of race two before a last lap move on Senna Proctor ended in contact as his team-mate came across to try to cover his line.
A resultant spin left Zelos down in fifteenth place at the finish, a result that leaves Zelos fourth in the championship standings, 108 points adrift of points leader Jamie Caroline with four races remaining at Silverstone and Brands Hatch GP.
“We went into qualifying on the back foot, and we struggled as a team. Seventh obviously wasn’t where we wanted to be, but I was fully focussed on moving forward,” said Zelos
“In the first race, I darted across to the inside on the approach to Turn One and kept myself out of trouble to work my way up to fourth reasonably quickly. It was a solid place to finish and gave us a decent grid spot for Sunday
“I got a good start again and drew alongside the battle for second going into Turn One, but somebody tapped me and sent me out wide so I had to slot back into fourth. I got my head down to try to catch the guys in front and I definitely had the legs on them, but the driver behind came with me so I needed to attack and defend all at once.
“On the last lap I got a good run on Senna down towards Deene. I went to the inside in the braking zone, but he tried to shut the door fairly late and pushed me onto the grass and into a spin. That was really frustrating, because I felt like the corner was mine and from being on-course to finish third and fourth for the team, we ended up with nothing.
“Looking ahead, whilst I’m still mathematically in contention, realistically I’m no longer in the championship hunt, so race wins are my only target and I want to really enjoy myself at Silverstone and Brands Hatch. If I can do that, hopefully the results will take care of themselves.”
