Superb Brands Hatch debut

James 'Jiggy' Gornall has again shown why he remains the favourite to take the BARC Formula Renault British Championship, in only his first year in single-seater car racing, following a superb result at Brands Hatch last weekend. 

After a 7-week gap in the championship series, James set a blistering pole position time on Sunday morning 4/10ths of a second inside the lap record, and 3/10ths ahead of his nearest rival in second position, on only his first visit to Brands Hatch!


In the garage

JA Motorsport team manager James Beales commented: "That was an incredible lap, the fastest by far one of these cars has ever gone round this very demanding track. He made it look easy, but we know it took a huge amount of commitment from James to achieve. He also had 4 or 5 other laps inside the lap record (47.5 secs) during the last few minutes of the qualifying session." Unfortunately during the 17-lap race during Sunday afternoon it didn't quite go all James' way. After leading the opening laps he was subsequently overtaken by his closest, albeit more experienced rival in the BARC Formula Renault Championship. 


Checking over ready for the race

As James commented, "I made a small mistake going into 'Clearways,' which lost me about 5 miles per hour on the exit and all the way down the straight toward 'Paddock Corner'. This gave Josh Fisher the speed advantage and as a result, he was able to make a last minute bid for the corner. Under normal circumstances I might have tried to defend, but keeping the Championship in mind I felt it better to concede on this occasion, to avoid an incident and not finish! I was easily able to keep with him once past, but back-markers, which come up really quickly here, made it very hard for me to set up a passing manoeuvre. It was a bit frustrating knowing I had the speed, but I just simply couldn't get into a passing position. Nevertheless a good result when all said and done."


Swapping notes with the opposition

Proving that he still had the speed during the race, James once again set the fastest lap, which equaled the lap record! He has now set the fastest lap at 7 of the 8 Championship races throughout the 2003 season. The only one he missed out on was at the last race at Snetterton, when he had to nurse a badly damaged car back to 3rd position! At Brands Hatch last Sunday though James made numerous attempts to pass his rival, exciting a large crowd for the last 6/7 laps in the process, keeping the commentators busy with a titanic battle around the last lap.


Gemma on the 'Jiggy' bike!

Taking an extra point for pole and fastest lap, James only conceded 1-point of his championship lead, which still stands at 21-points with just four rounds remaining. 

The next race for James and JA Motorsport will be at the local Rockingham Circuit, near Corby, for a double header round on 20/21st September. When asked to comment on the forthcoming race James said: "Rockingham is an exciting, fast and demanding track, very different to Brands Hatch as the laps are twice as long and take in some of the oval. I would be really pleased to see and meet lots of people from Peterborough, who come to watch the race as it is so close."

The BARC Formula Renault Championship lies in waiting…