Another podium for Paul at Mallory Park

Bob Marsh - Last modified: 28th Jul 2009

Qualifying:
The first five laps in the qualifying session saw Paul take it relatively easy just letting everyone else get on with it but on lap six he really started to move. The increase in pace was now showing as he challenged Tome Roche, Jonathan Greensmith and Rob Boston for the quickest laps.
He produced another slower lap before putting in his fastest lap of 57.148 seconds on lap fifteen which put him fourth on the grid behind Rob, Jonathan and Tom.
Grid:
1 Rob Boston 56.748
2 Jonathan Greensmith 56.838
3 Tom Roche 56.960
4 Paul Sheard 57.148

Race 1:
With a damp track and lightly falling rain the three championship leaders were away very quickly with Rob Boston taking the lead. Paul was back in fifth place by the end of the lap having lost out to Sam Hill who was now in fourth.
The rain continued to fall and by the end of the second lap Paul was in a battle with three other cars with less than half a second between them.
As the laps passed the three of them were slowly catching the trio up at the front which was still being led by Rob with Jonathan trying all ways to get past, by the end of lap five the gap between the two sets of three drivers was down to 1.3 seconds.
By now the rain had stopped and the circuit was starting to dry out with the lap times getting quicker and at this point there was a group of six cars all challenging for places six to twelve and it was this group that Paul now had to contend with dropping back to seventh by lap nine.
Paul had to work hard to fend off challenges from all directions and attempt to regain some of the time lost.
Suddenly on laps thirteen and fourteen the race at the front changed and the lead was now in the hands of Jonathan Greensmith with Tom Roche second and Rob Boston now back in third but all the time Paul was losing ground on this trio but was himself in a safe sixth place.
There was no way that Paul was ever going to catch the leaders and had to be content with a sixth place finish.

Result:
1 Jonathan Greensmith 20:14.225
2 Tom Roche 20:14.477
3 Rob Boston 20:15.932
6 Paul Sheard 20:25.746

Fastest Lap:
Tom Roche 56.938 Average speed85.25 mph
Race Two:
The grid for the second race of the day was made up of the second fastest qualifying time which had Paul on the third place of the grid.
Just as the cars were assembling the rain started again and got steadily worse as they came onto the grid.
As the lights went out the circuit was much wetter than in the first race and as before the three championship leaders were away quickly with Paul very close behind, unfortunately an incident after half a lap involving three cars caused the red flags to come out and the race stopped whilst the drivers and cars were recovered.
At the restart it was exactly as before and by the end of lap two Paul was snapping at the heels of Rob Boston in third place, the pressure paid off on lap three and Paul was past Rob into third place and set about trying to close the gap on Tom Roche.
The chase slowly opened a small gap over Rob but by the end of lap eleven Rob was back in third with Paul a distant fourth, he now had to start again to claw back the deficit.
At this stage of the race the back markers were having an effect on the leaders and Jonathan took advantage of this and started to really pull away from the rest of the field and by lap 13 Paul was back in third but was never able to close the gap to second but unlike the first race he was never able to relax as one mistake would let Rob Boston back into third.
As the race came to a close Paul was never really challenged for his third place but did manage to close the gap on Tom down to just under two seconds.
A worth winner was again Jonathan Greensmith and this now leaves the gap between first and second in the championship down to six points.
Paul is still fourth in the championship and requires some good results in the remaining five rounds to overhaul Rob Boston.
Result:
1 Jonathan Greensmith 20:36.073
2 Tom Roche 20:43.509
3 Paul Sheard 20:45.310
Fastest Lap:
Jonathan Greensmith 1:00.763 Average speed 79.98 mph

The next round will be on Sunday 2 August at Donington Park, this will be a 30 minute race and is the replacement for the cancelled race a Donington a few weeks ago.