Amery Motorsport : Clio Cup : BTCC : Motorsport

SILVERSTONE BLUES FOR AMERY MOTORSPORT

For rounds 11 and 12 of the ELF Renault Clio Cup, the series visited the ‘Home of British Motorsport’ at Silverstone as part of the ‘World Series by Renault’. Amery Motorsport drivers - father and son duo, Jonathan and David Shepherd relished the prospect of racing in front of the largest crowds of the season, as over 150,000 spectators attend the two day event.

Joining the Amery Motorsport awning for this round only, was old sparring partner from the Mini championships ‘ Rob Austin’. Rob races in the Belgium Clio series and entered the Silverstone event as a one off and the team were more than happy to support Rob for this prestigious race meeting.

The Amery truck rolled into the Silverstone paddock on Thursday and the team set-up the race awning and services, ready for testing on Friday. Silverstone offers excellent facilities for the teams within the large paddock areas and the crew always look forward to the Silverstone events.

Friday instantly got off to a bad start, when Renault changed its mind regarding the engine in Rob Austin’s ‘Belgium’ Clio Cup car. Having originally stated it was eligible for the UK series, it reversed its decision, resulting in a frantic swop over to a spare UK spec engine loaned from another team. In under 3hours the Amery Motorsport crew completed the task and Rob was able to join the test sessions.

All three drivers experienced difficulties during Fridays test and David Shepherd although quickly setting a fast pace, had an excursion across the grass, dislodging a drive belt, which affected the engine timing, thus ending his days practice. Luckily no lasting damage was done and the team were able to fix the problem, but David did have to sit-out the remaining sessions.

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Qualifying on Saturday again caused the drivers problems, as all three suffered understeer on new tyres, coupled with lack of experience on the Grand Prix circuit layout. David set the best times, with 20th and 18th grid slots respectively for the two races on Sunday.

As sunshine drenched the famous Northamptonshire track, the team prepared the cars for race one. The hot track temperature was a concern and a few set-up changes were dialled-in by the Amery Motorsport crew, before the cars headed off to the assembly area.

Once again the impressive Amery truck and awning attracted a great deal of attention, not only from the invited guests and sponsors, but also from the general public and several potential hot-shots, looking for a race seat for 2009. With a new Clio Cup car sat at the back of the awning, the team are keen to talk to drivers looking at options for next year, with the opportunity of drives at selected rounds this season, also on offer.

Race one saw David make a good start from the lights and he made-up two places in the opening laps, Jonathan also made a place and as the race settled, both drivers focussed on gaining more places and trying to get into the points. Unfortunately David ran wide exiting Maggots, rejoining at the back of the field, eventually making a few places back, finishing in 25th place. Jonathan meanwhile had collided with car 43 at the complex, sending him into the gravel, ending his race and damaging his rear suspension.

Despite the glorious weather, the second race on the Sunday was another disaster as David ran wide exiting ‘Brooklands’ running across the gravel and as he rejoined the track, he collected Law in car 19 who left no room for David on the apex of ‘Luffield’. With damaged suspension David limped back to the pits and parked his car. Jonathan meanwhile managed to keep out of trouble and finished the race in 21st place, narrowly missing out on some points.

Guest driver Rob Austin also failed to finish the race, so with nothing to show for the weekends efforts at Silverstone, both the drivers and the team look forward to a break, before the next round at Snetterton on the 12/13th July.

You can watch the ELF Renault Clio Cup live on ITV Four and further coverage on Motorsport UK, check programme listings for times.