Max5 Championship at Snetterton on Sunday 25 May

Bob Marsh - Last modified: 26th May 2008

Paul Sheard gets his first Max5 win of the season.

Round three of the Max5 Championship took place at Snetterton on Sunday 25 May in a longer than normal 30 minutes race.

With the leading two in the championship away elsewhere this gave the chance for Paul to close the gap after the disappointment of a non finish at Castle Combe.

The other drivers from the Sheard camp were Joachim Ritter, James Maxfield and Justin Newnam who is having his most successful season yet.

Rain had fallen for most of the morning and as qualifying approached the rain got worse.

Qualifying: Conditions Wet

With the rain pouring down the drivers came out to the wettest qualifying session of the season so far.

Right from the start of the session most of the drivers were lapping around the 1 minute 42 second mark and it was clear that most drivers were having difficulty keeping the car on the track.

Paul Sheard and Justin were the only two drivers to dip below the 1 minute 40 second mark due to the conditions

These two now made the front row of the grid with Brett Walter and Dean Parker making up the second row.

Joachim Ritter was to start on the third row whilst James Maxfield was to start on the sixth row.

Grid Positions:

1 Paul Sheard 1:39.502 Average speed 113.65 KPH
2 Justin Newnam 1:39.9959 Average Speed 113.13 KPH
3 Brett Walter 1:40.300 Average speed 112.75 KPH
6 Joachim Ritter 1:41.506 Average Speed 111.41 KPH
12 James Maxfield 1:47.742 Average Speed 104.96 KPH

Race: Conditions Wet

From the start Justin Newnam got away the fastest in very wet conditions but by the end of lap one Paul Sheard was in front and pulling away from the field with Dean Parker and Justin Brett Walter and Matt Robinson in pursuit.

As the race progressed Paul continued to pull away from the following group until the race was red flagged after 14 minutes to allow for the tyre wall to be rebuilt after being hit.

As the drivers waited for the restart the rain started to ease and the race was shortened to 10 minutes after the break.

From the restart Paul Sheard took command with Andy Burge close behind followed by Richard Breland and Justin Newnam.

As the three leaders pulled away slowly Matt Robinson and Mark Pierpoint passed Justin pushing him down to sixth on the road by the end of lap 2 with young Brett Walter in the most unusual position of being next to last.

On lap three Joachim Ritter spun at the Bomb hole but continued unfortunately now almost at the back of the field.

Up front Paul Sheard and Andy Burge continued to pull away but Paul was not having life as easy as in the restarted race with Andy continuing to push him hard.

As the final lap started Paul had enough in hand to fend off Andy both drivers producing their fastest lap with Richard Breland coming home a creditable third and Justin and Matt battling it out to the line with Matt just ahead.

James Maxfield had his best finish to date coming in eighth and with Joachim Ritter pulling back to tenth place after the spin.

Result:

1 Paul Sheard 10:15.364 Average Speed 110.26 KPH
2 Andy Burge 10:16.796 Average Speed 110.01 KPH
3 Richard Breland 10:22.666 Average Speed 108.97 KPH

Fastest Lap: Andy Burge 1:40.515 Average Speed 112.51 KPH

Championship Positions:

2 Justin Newnan
6 Joachim Ritter
8 James Maxfield
12 Paul Sheard
17 Mahinder Vaswani

The next round will be at Brands Hatch on the weekend of 7/8 June this will be a double header with round 4 on Saturday and round 5 on Sunday.