Racer Mason builds on his good start

3:10pm Tue May 31, 2011

Southwell racing driver Matt Mason said that he was “satisfied” after another solid weekend in the Protyre Formula Renault BARC Championship.

The MGR Motorsport driver took two strong point-scoring finishes in rounds three and four at Brands Hatch, making him the top rookie in the 2011 championship standings.

With limited testing at the Kent circuit prior to the races, the focus was to get to grips with the circuit. Mason ended the day joint fastest, putting him in positive mood heading into qualifying, in which he set the 12th and ninth fastest times.

Mason said: “In first qualifying, we only managed 12th, so I had to give it a big push for the second session. We were running third for most of it, before dropping back to ninth. There was just over a tenth of a second between second and ninth, which is less than a car length.”

The first race saw Mason negotiate an early restart before going on to enjoy a strong run. He produced the best overtaking move of the race with a stunning pass on James Thorp around the outside of Druids on his way to a ninth-place finish.

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