Theodore Resumes Racing At Oulton Park

After a frustrating 6 months on the sidelines due to financial restrictions, James Theodore returned to the Protyre Formula Renault BARC Championship at Oulton Park on Saturday, 28th May. Having originally planned to step up to the Formula Renault UK series for 2011, it soon became apparent that securing the huge budget required for the series was going to be unlikely. Therefore a rethink was necessary and the most feasible option was to try and gain the budget required to compete in at least part of the 2011 Protyre Formula Renault BARC Championship. Unfortunately no money was secured in time for the first 2 rounds of the season at Donington Park, and due to University commitments James was also unable to compete at Rounds 3/4 at Brands Hatch. However through relentless hard work and determination, enough money was gained to allow participation in rounds 5/6 of the championship at Oulton Park.
After securing a late deal with leading team M-Tech Lite, James had a busy week leading up to the meeting. On Tuesday he travelled up to leading GP2/GP3 team MW Arden to have a half day session on their state of the art simulator. The next day James had a seat fitting at M-Tech Lite’s base in Swadlincote, Derbyshire, also giving him a chance to get aquainted with the team. Having prepared for the meeting the team arrived on the morning of Friday, 27th May to a wet Oulton Park circuit, not ideal conditions to return to.
Having become aquainted with the new car James felt comfortable in the conditions, and after some setup changes began to post consistantly fast times. The track dried consistantly and with no more rain immiment the drivers were left with a dry track to look forward to after lunch. With limited track time the team pushed hard to find a setup that suited James’ driving style and by the end of the 3 afternoon sessions he felt more at ease with the car.  James said afterwards, “I’ve had a really encouraging first day with the team, it has been helpful to drive the car in both wet and dry conditions and I feel confident in both. Looking forward to putting together some solid performances tomorrow.”
Conditions were far more pleasing for qualifying on Saturday morning, with a dry track welcoming the drivers.  Having opted not to run a new set of slicks on Friday, it was the first time James had ran new tyres in 9 months. After a mixed session he lined up a respectable 6th place for the two afternoon races, although always the perfectionist he wasn’t satisfied. “We didn’t have a great session due to the lack of time I had yesterday to set the car up to my liking. With the new tyres we created too much understeer which meant we lost time at most corners and the harder I pushed the worse the problem got. It was by no means a catastrophic result and with the knowledge we now have I’m sure we can edit the setup and be really strong in the races.
This was exactly what happened and although lining up on the outside of the grid for round 5, James made a tremendous start to overtake 3 drivers around the outside into the first corner and put himself straight into the top 3. Going down towards the hairpin a light mist of rain began to fall, catching out the top 2 drivers of Josh Webster and Kourosh Khani. As they both went wide James lined himself up to take 2nd place when he was powerfully hit from behind, ending his race abruptly. “I didn’t really know what happened at the time, I just felt a large hit from behind and flew off the track with extensive damage. Im really gutted because I made a cracking start and was in contention for a big result. It looks like the driver that hit me was also hit from behind so he couldn’t do anything, we were both passengers in the incident. I just hope we can get the car sorted for race 2.”
The team worked nonstop to fix the car, replacing a full corner including components of the driveshaft and rear bodywork to get the car ready for race 2, and finished working  just as the cars were lining up for the grid. From grid 6 James was again looking to capitalise, and made a good start to be within the top 6 pack as they navigated the first lap. With the top 6 tightly bunched the race was red flagged after a large collision at Druids left 3 cars heavily damaged. Under resumption James started 7th after being overtaken just before the flag, but quickly found himself in 5th after another good start. Cold tyres dropped him to 6th at the end of lap 1 but he fought hard to retake 5th and catch the battle between the top 4 cars. With the top 5 tightly bunched James just caught the battle too late and finished 5th with 3rd fastest lap. Commenting on the weekend he said “It hasn’t been a fairytale weekend but it has been great to be back in a car and the guys at M-Tech have been brilliant in making me feel part of the team right from the beginning. We got quicker and quicker as the weekend progressed and proved we are still a top package with the ability to race at the front. Its a shame we didn’t have a testday before the meeting to get the car set up for me because then we could have started with a boost, but the progression in both the car and myself has been great and I look forward to being out again”.
James is confirmed for rounds 11/12 of the championship at Silverstone, also supporting the BTCC package with coverage on ITV. There are 2 meetings in between, with rounds 7/8 at Croft and rounds 9/10 at Thruxton in July and September respectively. Funding has not been secured for these meetings as of yet but the effort level has not decreasing and everyone involved with James is working non-stop to ensure that participation at these meetings is possible. With a bit of luck the next race report will be after Croft on the 23rd/24th July, where James claimed 2 stunning pole positions and a race victory last season.