ROUND 6 – ELF Renault Clio Cup / Donington Park, Leicestershire, July 14/15 2007

David Gambles in Donington Downpour

Both Team Gladman drivers, father and son duo ‘Jonathan and David Shepherd’ survived the atrocious conditions at Donington Park during round six of the ELF Renault Clio Cup and came away pleased with their performances during a difficult weekend of motor racing.

Jonathan gained many places in the final involving some great overtaking moves, whilst David’s tyre gamble eventually gave him the fastest lap and two well deserved points in the process.

Despite the weather, large crowds attended the popular Donington Park circuit. The over subscribed Clio Cup championship, meant that the 40 drivers entered had to qualify for grid position and to be eligible for the 36 grid slots for Sundays points scoring race, so four unlucky entrants would not be racing in the final.

With Jonathan and David in separate qualifying sessions on Saturday morning, the “Amery Motorsport’ team manager had decided to try swapping David’s front tyres to the rear during his session, to give him a lap of balanced tyre temperature through the corners.

This strategy has proved successful for many of the front running drivers and David was keen to give it a go. David ended 12th fastest in his session, his best qualifying to date proving that the tyre swap strategy was worth doing, despite the loss of several laps worth of time during the process. Jonathan meanwhile elected to stay out for the whole qualifying session, ending 17th fastest and just in the comfort zone.

With the qualifying races still to contest on Saturday afternoon, all eyes were on the weather, hoping it would stay dry. David raced first and despite starting 12th on the grid, unfortunately lost several places through various racing incidents, finishing in 16th position. Jonathan meanwhile finished in 13th gaining several places and booking a place in the final a few rows ahead of his son David in the process.

Whereas the rain had held off all day on Saturday, Sunday saw the heavens open and torrential downpours led to many races being cancelled or put back. With the British Touring Cars taking priority to meet the TV coverage, the Clios raced at 4pm instead of the initial 12 noon slot.

As all 36 Clio Cup cars assembled for the race, the rain had stopped, although there were still rivers of water running across the track at various places including the awesome flat-out ‘Craner Curves’. All drivers had opted for wet tyres, however David had discussed the option of diving into the pit lane during the ‘green flag’ laps to possibly change to slicks should he think the track may dry out during the race.

This he duly did and the ‘Amery Motorsport’ technicians quickly changed his rubber to allow him to start from the pit lane once all the cars had started the race. The size of the gamble was made ever more obvious when David’s was the only car to pull in for a tyre change.

Out went the lights and David left the pit lane to tag onto the back of the pack, as he entered ‘Redgate’ he immediately went into a spin on his cold slick tyres, he managed to rejoin the track suffering several more spins before eventually getting some tyre temperature and a feel for the treacherous conditions.

Jonathan made a good start but was held up in the first corner melee and dropped to 29th place, however he managed to keep it on track despite cars flying off everywhere, bringing mud and debris back onto the tarmac. As he settled into his race Jonathan started to pick-off a few cars gaining in confidence lap-by-lap, and after several great passing manoeuvres brought his car home safely in 21st place, having gained five places from his original grid slot.

David meanwhile was starting to claw back the time lost in the early laps and was getting faster and faster as the laps counted down. By the end of the race, although too far back to catch the pack, David was posting fastest lap, time and again. Despite ending in 29th position, David got two points for posting the fastest lap and a great deal of applause and attention from the crowd, commentators and TV cameras.

An exhausted David commented, “That was amazing, at first I thought we’d made a big mistake, but once the tyre temperature came-up I was flying on the slicks. It’s typical that that was the first race without a safety car period, where I could have tagged onto the back of the field and then picked them off in handfuls”.

So both drivers went home feeling pleased with their performances and looking forward to the next round at Snetterton later in the month. Sponsors Birchall, Conder Structures, Interlock Paving and Hillserve enjoyed all the action, despite all the downpours and delays.

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