This years Lotus Cup and Elise Trophy championships went down to the wire at the final round, which was held at Snetterton on 31st October.
Our drivers James Little and Andrew Bentley only needed to score just 2 points to seal the Lotus Cup production championship. James was also in second position in Elise Trophy, with first an unlikely but still possible goal, and third just a couple of points behind us. We still had some work to do…
With a hectic schedule of six sessions in one day, including the 90 minute Cup finale, the whole team were feeling the pressure to turn the car around, to our own high standards, in very little time. Things started well, with James delivering under pressure, putting the car on pole position for the first Elise Trophy race, and soon followed this up with a blistering pole for the Cup race by just over a second from the nearest competitor!
The first Elise Trophy race was a tense battle, with the first three cars running together throughout the whole 20 minutes. James did a great job to fend off the persuants, taking the chequered flag in first position by less than two tenths of a second. The result edged James a little closer to the top of the table, but it would require a DNF from the current leader, and charge through the reversed grid for us.
In the second Trophy race, James battled through from 10th on the reverse grid to finish in a creditable 4th position. Not enough to make the jump up the championship, but the result sealed the runner up spot in this years Elise Trophy championship – very well done to James for his consistent performances throughout the season.
The final race of the day was the big one. By qualifying in pole position, we had secured one of the two points we needed to confirm the championship, we really only needed to get to the chequered flag to take the overall class honours. James once again made a great start in his stint of the race, running for 50 minutes flat out, and pulling an impressive 15+ second gap over our rivals! A controlled, error-free pitstop was required, and delivered by the team, although some of the lead was eroded by an ill-timed safety car on track. Next up, Andrew set about driving to the flag. Unfortunately, we were overtaken for the race lead on the final lap of the race, but second position was more than enough to secure a healthy championship victory.
Congratulations to James and Andrew on some very impressive and consistent driving in the Elise Cup R throughout the season, rewarded by sealing the Lotus Cup UK production championship. With a runner up slot in the Elise Trophy championship also, James can be very pleased with his performances, in only his second season of racing. Finally, well done to the team at Hangar 111 for delivering a very fast and reliable car throughout the season.
