Rickard Rydell yesterday boosted his hopes of finishing as runner-up in the British Touring Car Championship after breaking his own Donington Park qualifying record in official testing for Sunday's twin rounds of the championship. Rydell lapped in 1min 36.615sec, over a tenth of a second inside the mark he set in April.
With four races remaining, the Swede is in second place overall, 19 points ahead of Alain Menu, who was seventh fastest yesterday, just ahead of the newly crowned champion, Frank Biela. Second fastest was Britain's David Accord, who edged out his team-mate, James Kaye, by five-hundredths of a second.
Sunday's double-header will also see the fight continued for the manufacturers' championship. Audi leads the battle with 257 points, with BMW second on 221 and Volvo third with 213.
AUTO TRADER RAC TOURING CAR CHAMPIONSHIP (Donington Park) Official testing times: 1 R Rydell (Swe) Volvo 850 1min 36.615sec (93.15mph); 2 D Leslie (GB) Honda Accord 1:36.782; 3 J Kaye (GB) Honda Accord 1:36.831; 4 J Thompson (GB) Vauxhall Vectra 1:37.317; 5 P Kox (Neth) BMW 320i 1:37.360; 6 G Ayles (GB) Nissan Primera 1:37.363; 7 A Menu (Swit) Renault Laguna 1:37.367; 8 F Biela (Ger) Audi A4 1:37.370; 9 W Hoy (GB) Renault Laguna 1:37.402; 10 J Winkelhock (Ger) BMW 320i 1:37.442; 11 R Ravaglia (It) BMW 320i 1:37.456; 12 J Cleland (GB) Vauxhall Vectra 1:37.545.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments