At Donington park this past weekend Corby-based team Richardson Racing secured their second race victory of the season.
It was a drizzly qualifying on the Saturday James Taylor qualified ahead of his teammates in fifth, Will Martin in ninth and Casper Stevenson in twelfth.
The opening race were a struggle for the team due to technical issues that prevented Taylor and Martin taking their places on the grid.
However a red flag due to an incident at Redgate allowed the team extra time to get Taylor’s car working. Taylor started from the pit lane on the restart and gradually made his way through the pack, to finish in sixth. However the youngster gained an additional place after Roman Bilinski was excluded, resulting in fifth place.
After an incident free race Stevenson finished in eighth, but also gained a place, and moved up to seventh. Martin unfortunately never made it out to race.
Credit: Jakob Ebrey
Race two took place on the Sunday with all three team Richardson Racing drivers took to the track. From the second row Taylor had to battle hard against Bilinski and James Hedley. All three were contenders for the podium.
However, Taylor moved ahead into Pike when Bilinski and Hedley crashed. Despite Hedleys best efforts, Taylor defended first place and took his second race victory of the championship.
Martin dropped to tenth but managed to climb up the ranks and cross the line in fifth. Meanwhile, Stevenson sat inside the top ten for the duration of the race. He crossed the line in seventh, taking a second place on the rookie podium.
In race three Taylor took his second podium finish of the weekend after a long battle when he crossed the finish line in third.
On lap five Martin and Stevenson both got caught up in an incident at Redgate when Theo Edgerton spun off, Martin dropped to ninth as he made contact. Despite damage to his car Martin was able to take seventh.
Stevenson was forced to take to the grass to avoid the chaos caused by Edgerton. This resulted in him dropping outside the top ten, but after hard work he crossed the line in eleventh, securing another rookie podium along the way.
In the current championship standings Taylor sits in second. Stevenson in ninth followed closely by Martin in tenth. The juniors are set to race at Thruxton next.
“Fifth in race two was a solid result and in the final race I think a podium finish could have been possible if I hadn’t picked up a bit of damage.” said Martain, “However, I showed how competitive I am again and picked up some decent points from a difficult starting point.” “I just need a little bit of luck on my side and I’m confident that we can be strong at Thruxton next time out.”
Stevenson added,“Qualifying in the mid-pack made the first race of the weekend tough, but I was pleased with the way it went and to come through to seventh was a solid start.
“To then repeat that in race two and pick up second amongst the rookies was great and it was more solid points as well.”
“Having battled back from the DNF at Brands Hatch to take three top ten finishes, it would be nice to push for some overall silverware at Thruxton.”
Taylor summarised his weekend, “The red flag in race one really saved us because without that, I don’t think we’d have got out on track. We could easily have ended up with a zero score from that race and after a DNF at Brands Hatch, we can’t really afford another one so early in the season.”
“Recovering those points was really important and then race two couldn’t have really gone much better. When I had the chance to get into the lead, I made sure I took it, and then held off Hedley at the end”
“Thruxton next time out will be exciting and hopefully we can have a good showing there.”
