Ginetta Junior champion Sarah Moore is taking away the positives from a Brands Hatch weekend that saw her bag more valuable points in the Henderson Insurance Brokers LMP3 Cup.
Finishing seventh and fourth in the two one-hour races, Sarah kept up the pace in the title battle with the pairings ahead as well as pulling away from rivals that were nipping at her heels before the second weekend of the season at the Kent circuit.
After a Friday of testing that saw Sarah, and the rest of the field, struggle with chronic understeer in the Ligier JSP3 things started looking up after team-mate Richard Dean showed blistering pace in qualifying after a number of set-up changes.
The pair looked certain to claim their first pole position in the championship until they were pipped in the final 30 seconds by United Autosports and Ecurie Ecosse, relegating the Tockwith Motorsports pair to third.
Saturday’s one hour race started brightly for Richard, the founder of pole-sitters United Autosports, but a slow puncture on the opening lap saw him struggling for a number of laps before reluctantly pitting for a fresh rear tyre. That relegated them to a seventh place finish.
The second race went a lot better. Qualifying fifth, Richard was involved with a cracking battle for third with Alasdair McCaig’s Ecurie Ecosse Ligier and Paul Bailey’s Horsepower Racing Ligier. At the halfway mark of the 60 minute race, Sarah got in the car and did what RIchard couldn’t – she got past the Horsepower car which had been taken over by Andy Schulz.
Running fourth for a time, Sarah was temporarily demoted to fifth before claiming the place again after benefitting from an incident involving Schulz and then race-leader Jamie Spence. That would bring the red flag out and a move back up to fourth place.
Sarah said: “Generally I’m happy with the way the weekend went, we had quite a few set-up changes we had to make after testing which helped us in the first qualifying session and we were really unlucky not to claim pole position as Richard really deserved it after the pace he showed throughout the weekend.
“The first race wasn’t anything to write home about, but the second race showed we have strong pace and there were some great battles throughout the race.”
