Donington Park 12th & 13th July 

Following on from a difficult previous event at Brands Hatch in Kent, the next three races took place at Donington Park by the East Midlands Airport near Derby.  This is one of Craig’s favourite circuits and one he holds the lap record for from racing in a previous formula, Sports 2000.   A test day visit to the circuit in early June allowed a decision on which tyre he would prefer to use going forward and also some changes to the Class B Ligier JS49 prototype sports car.

The weekend comprised of qualifying just before lunchtime on Saturday and a first race towards the end of the same day starting around five o’clock.  Sunday saw two races, again at around lunchtime and the end of the day.   On a very hot Saturday, qualifying went well.   During the early stages three quick laps allowed Craig to start race one and race two from seventh and sixth place on the grid respectively, all achieved from the best and second best qualifying times.

Race one started well with Craig making up two places in the first corner and settling into some very quick laps, managing to stay in front of some extremely quick car / driver combinations around him.  At the chequered flag Craig had managed a fourth place finish overall and third in Class B, certainly a great start to the event.   

Sunday was much cooler and the start of race two was quite different as the number 22 Ligier got boxed in on the outside of the first corner.   Craig dropped back to around ninth place but by the end of lap one was up into fourth, again settling in quickly to achieve very quick lap times throughout the race, finishing in a strong third and second in Class B.  

The third place in race two allowed Craig to start from that slot on the Sunday afternoon grid.  A great start soon saw the young Scot up into second place where he remained for fifteen minutes of the twenty minute race.   Whilst doing well to maintain this excellent place an unfortunate yellow flag incident did allow the third placed driver to tighten the gap to Craig and due to his larger horsepower advantage he was able to sail past on the back straight and so a third was the result at the end of the race, again coming second in Class B.  

The final event of the year will take place at Silverstone early August and Craig is looking forward to racing again at the Home of British Motorsport.