James Roe Jr. Leads the Britcover Avon Tyres BRSCC Formula Ford 1600 Championship.

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James Roe Jr. leads the BRSCC Formula Ford Championship following the opening three rounds in Brands Hatch.  Running with Bernard Dolan, Roe continued from his impressive run from last month in Kirkistow Race Circuit.

The Friday testing program went to plan with four sessions under his belt, seeing Roe topping the times for each one.

Qualifying started off as planned, topping the times at the beginning of the session.  As the times started to tumble late on, Roe went for another flying lap only to be held up in traffic. Navigating his way through the slower runners, Roe lost his nose cone.  Losing out on straight line speed he qualified in P8.

Race 1, Roe got a great start off the grid getting up to P6.  He picked his way through the pack to finish 3rd on the podium.

Race 2, after a good start from 3rd on the grid Roe drew alongside Luke Williams into Paddock Hill and battled hard with both Williams and Neil MacLennan throughout the race.  The three pulled away from the pack.  The three-way dual saw Roe finish on the podium again in 3rd place, a half a second clear of the following pack.

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Race 3 started with a reverse grid for the top eight.  This saw the Kildare native start from 6th.  He got off the line to P3 heading into Paddock, where he was pushed wide after contact.  This pushed Roe back to 6th again on lap one.  Again, Roe picked his way back to 4th.  The train of four cars pulled away from the pack for two laps.  The four pulled alongside each other heading for Druids.  Contact was made with Cooper, as Daly made contact with Luke Williams.  This set Roe up to pass Daly around the outside of Graham Hill which saw him up to 2nd.  Now the sights were set on the leader, however, after the contact with Cooper, the geometry of the car was compromised by damage to the wishbone.  A three-lap chase saw Roe finish in P2.

Roe came away from the weekend with the fastest lap in testing, three podiums and leading the Championship.

Speaking after the busy weekend Roe said” It’s nice to come away leading the championship after the qualifying session I had. It was frustrating as I didn’t get to show the true pace we knew we had following testing. To go from P8 to a podium position in the first race was what saved the weekend to be honest. Now we were at the business end of the grid. This weekend was massive learning curve, race three especially. It was crazy. Such close racing.”

The winner of the Britcover Avon Tyres DRSCC FF1600 Championship will be heading to America for the ‘Mazda Road To Indy Shootout’.

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