VX Racing pleased after double win at Snett

VX Racing were celebrating a successful weekend at Snetterton yesterday after Fabrizio Giovanardi closed the gap to championship rival Colin Turkington. The Italian took a further two wins at the Norfolk circuit to bring his tally this year up to four victories, before securing a second placed finish in the final race of the day.

Matt Neal, who had been second in the championship going into the meeting, had a less fortunate weekend and could only manage a best result of third, also taking a ninth and fourteenth placed finish. Andrew Jordan’s weekend also promised much more than it delivered, with the youngster only managing one points finish with a fourth placed finish in the final race.

The opening race of the day saw Jordan starting as the best-placed Vauxhall driver, from fourth on the grid. After contact between early front runners Jason Plato and Colin Turkington, Jordan found himself leading team-mate Giovanardi at the end of the opening lap. However he soon found himself slipping back as he struggled with the handling on his Vectra, suffering an off-track moment that eventually meant he would finish 12th. For Giovanardi however it was a perfect race once he was in the lead, the Italian remaining relatively unchallenged all the way to the flag.

Starting from pole position for race two, Giovanardi took a lights-to-flag victory despite carrying the maximum success ballast of 45kg. For Jordan it would be a case of finishing where he started, as contact with Tom Chilton at the start meant he had his work cut out just to finish back in 12th by the end of the race. Matt Neal was a bit too eager away from the line, incurring a drive through penalty that put paid to his chances of finishing any higher than fourteenth.

Race three saw Giovanardi randomly selected to start from ninth position, with Jordan and Neal starting from 12th and 14th respectively. All three drivers drove strong races, with them finishing in second, third and fourth respectively in the order of Giovanardi, Neal and Jordan.

At the end of the day Giovanardi was able to reflect on what had been his strongest weekend of the year so far.

“I’ve made up ground on Turkington and overtaken Matt in the Drivers’ Championship, so it has been a good weekend for me,” said Giovanardi. “The car is amazing; we’ve resolved the problems we had earlier in the season with running in hot weather and it’s been great to drive all day. In the third race I think we could have taken Turkington if I had had a few more corners. I’m confident for the future now with the improvements we’ve made.”

Meanwhile Neal was left to reflect on what could have been,citing differences in the car’s engine in the third race as the main reason for his stronger performance around the high-speed Snetterton circuit.

“If only I had the car I had in the third race all weekend,” admitted Neal. “We changed the engine after the second race and it was a completely different car.  I equalled my qualifying time on the penultimate lap of the third race, even with a damaged car and worn tyres, It was frustrating then, as I thought I could have had a win, but just got bottled up behind Fabrizio and I didn’t want to try anything stupid and hang him out.  The third race was a little consolation but this weekend hasn’t been good for our points haul, but there are four more rounds and plenty of points available, still a long way to go.”

Jordan, who started from fourth for the first race and was confident of stronger results, was left feeling frustrated with his weekend.

“The final race of the day produced our best result, although I still didn’t have the ultimate pace at the start to go with the others,” said Jordan. “In the second race we had overheating and engine problems and something wrong with the rear of the car, so we ended up having to sort those problems out for the third race.  I’m looking forward for us getting the car back and having a good look at it, strip it down, as we didn’t have the pace we had yesterday. I think maybe we lost our way a bit today after a disappointing first race, but it’s been a bit frustrating. We won’t look backwards now though, we’ll focus on the next round.”