Grainger takes BTCC title with Rd3 win
Round 3 of this years’ Schumacher BTCC Championship was held at the Halifax track, which was a miracle seeing only 7 days before it was under about 3 feet of water what a great job John and the committee have done to get the track into a condition where it could be used. The weather forecast for the day showed showers and at the drivers briefing it was decided that the format for the day would be 5 rounds of round by round qualifying the best 2 to count followed by 1 final.
Qualifying Round 1
It was Schumacher’s Mark Musgrove heading the top of the pile with Roy Crowson second, Jonathon Edwards third, motor mouth Kris Kennedy fourth and young Ben Gayson fifth in the 13.5 stock class. In Super touring 10.5 it was Olly Jefferies who set the fastest time of the round , Alan Bickerstaff was second, Chris Kerswell third, Andy Moore fourth and Phil Chambers fifth.
Qualifying Round 2
In the 13.5 Stock Class it was Jonathon Edwards who set the fastest time of this round, Gary Jones was second fastest with Roy Crowson third , fourth was Steven Powis and Mark Musgrove fifth . In the 10.5 Super Touring Tom Watts set the fastest time, second fastest was Chris Bosomworth, Zane Gittins was third with Jonny Aird fourth and Bradley Sellars fifth.
Qualifying Round 3
13.5 Stock Class saw Mark Musgrove set the fastest time again with Bryan Nortje second Jeremy Clarke third fastest Gary Jones posting the fourth fastest time an d rounding out the top five in this round was Roy Crowson. The Super Touring 10.5 class saw former World, European and Current British Champion Andy Moore set the number 1 time, Chris Kerswell second with Schumacher’s Chris Grainger third, another Schumacher team driver Colin Price was fourth and rounding out the top 5 in this round was Olly Jefferies.
Qualifying Round 4
Round 4 saw Jonathon Edwards in TQ for the second time in the 13.5 Stock Class, Roy Crowson was second, Steven Powis was third, Bryan Nortje was fourth and rounding out the top five was Chris Lovely. 10.5 Super Touring Olly Jefferies was fastest in the round followed by team mate Alan Bickerstaff, third was Schumacher team driver Sam Clifton then in fourth was team mate to Olly and Alan, Zak Smith, and fifth was Chris Grainger.
Qualifying Round 5
13.5 Stock Class it was again Mark Musgrove who took TQ for the round second was Jeremy Clarke, in third spot for the round was Chris Lovely, fourth was Jonathan Edwards and fifth was Gary Jones. Super Touring 10.5 Saw Schumacher team leader Chris Grainger take the TQ for the round second again in the round was Alan Bickerstaff, having a better round getting in the top five for the first time, in third place was Matthew White, fourth was Sam Clifton and rounding out the top five was David Hall.
After 5 the round by round qualifying the best 2 to count, the top 10 in each class were:-
Top 10 Stock 13.5
1. Mark Musgrove
2. Jonathan Edwards
3. Roy Crowson
4. Jeremy Clarke
5. Bryan Nortje
6. Gary Jones
7. Steven Powis
8. Chris Lovely
9. Kris Kennedy
10.Ben Gayson
Top 10 Super Touring 10.5
1. Olly Jefferies
2. Chris Grainger
3. Alan Bickerstaff
4. Andy Moore
5. Chris Kerswell
6. Sam Clifton
7. Matthew White
8. Zak Smith
9. Phil Chambers
10.Colin Price
Stock 13.5 A Final
In this final Mark Musgrove driving the Schumacher MI4 CXL got away well and led from the start buzzer to the end of the five minutes never being troubled for the lead through the whole race, four cars on the first lap had incidents some being stuck on the grass and others were able to be marshalled more quickly the driver to get the worst of this was the very likeable Kris Kennedy going down over a lap a situation he would never recover from and was forced to retire on lap 9. With a very consistent five minutes it was Chris lovely who managed to get past Jonathan Edwards after had an incident on lap 8 costing him 2 seconds, this remained the positions of both of them to the end of the race
Top 5 Stock 13.5 A final were:-
1. Mark Musgrove
2. Chris Lovely
3. Jonathan Edwards
4. Jeremy Clarke
5. Gary Jones
Super Touring 10.5 A Final
The Super touring final saw the Olly and Andy show for quite a few laps in this final, both had got past pole man Chris Grainger in the first couple of laps and although Andy had what look the quicker car, Olly held him off for quite a few laps with these 2 dicing for position, it allowed Mr Grainger to start to close the gap and on lap 12 an incident for Andy saw him lose almost 4 seconds and Olly just over a second this all contributed in MI4 CXL driver Chris Grainger to get to finish this final in the lead, followed by Olly in second and Andy third what a great final !!!!
This result for Chris wrapps up the 2012 BTCC Championship after only 3 of the 5 rounds after winning all three meetings so far! Considering the level of competition this is an excellent achievement.
Top 5 Super Touring A final was:-
1. Chris Grainger
2. Olly Jefferies
3. Andy Moore
4. Chris Kerswell
5. Alan Bickerstaff
We would like to take this opportunity to thank YRCMCC for an excellent run meeting, the catering facility for the excellent food, and also another mention to committee for their hard work prior to the meeting to make it possible for us to have the track in a race able condition. Our Next round will be at Snetterton on 05/08/2012 hope to see you all there spaces are available please book in on central booking.
Source: Schumacher [racing-cars.com]
