ROCKINGHAM RACES MARK HALFWAY POINT OF MINI CHALLENGE SEASON
Podium finishing MINI Challenge racer Rob Smith heads into the fourth event of the 2016 season at Rockingham this coming weekend, 18th/19th June, bidding to put the misfortune which has impacted his title bid up to now firmly behind him and battle for a return to the podium placings.
Since the previous event on the other side of Northamptonshire at Silverstone last month, the MINI UK VIP Customer Team driver’s car has been stripped down and the engine sent away in an attempt to fully get to the bottom of the straight-line speed issues which have been a thorn in Rob’s side.
Despite all of the difficulties he has encountered over the course of the first seven races, Telford driver Rob has still managed to rack-up a lot of championship points with some battling drives and he goes into the Rockingham weekend seventh in the standings.
“The team has been working on the car over the weekend, putting the engine back in and getting everything rebuilt ready for Rockingham”, said the 24-year-old, “Apparently they found a bent valve so hopefully that’s the cause of the problems we’ve had and we’ll be back on proper form.
“I’d say we’ve had the issue since the start of the season really, it just got masked by other problems at Donington and Brands. At Silverstone, the straight-line was really noticeable in the races – when I was in a slipstreaming situation the difference to the other cars was obvious. I’ve been a sitting duck really in the races, but still managed to take some good points so we haven’t fallen too far behind.”
While Rob’s second season in the MINI Challenge has been somewhat vexing thus far, the Evergreen Tyres, GroupTyre UK and BMTR-backed racer did taste podium champagne at Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit in early May when he secured a well-deserved top three finish in round four.
As a former category race winner, the MINI F56 driver – who, away from the track, works as a Body and Trim Engineer at Bentley Cars – clearly has the pace to lead the way and is hungrier than ever to piece together his best weekend of the campaign.
If the early-season problems have been ironed out once and for all, there is no doubt Rob can still mount a major push back up the championship over the course of the final four race meetings of the year, beginning at Rockingham’s International Super Sportscar Circuit a few days from now.
“I’ve always quite enjoyed Rockingham and hopefully the work the team has done will make a difference for qualifying and we can stick the car on the first two rows”, he commented, “This will be the first time there in these cars so hopefully my experience from [Renault] Clios will help.
“It’ll be the first time at Rockingham on these Dunlop tyres too but we’ve done a lot of work with the set-up and with my driving style to look after the tyres, hopefully that’ll pay off and we’ll be able to challenge for some silverware and be back where we should be.”
Rockingham qualifying will get underway at 11.10 on Saturday, 18th June, with race one scheduled to follow at 16.40. On Sunday, 19th June, the second encounter will commence at 11.25 with the third and final race of the weekend set to begin at 17.05.
Provisional 2016 MINI Challenge Driver Standings (after Rd7):7th Rob Smith, 217pts
