ROUNDS 7 & 8 - PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS FOR REDWOOD AND FOSTER SHOW DIVIDENDS AT BRANDS | 15.07.07 The steps forward made by Redwood and Foster shone through in both races at Brands Hatch this weekend, with the Duo leading race one, and progressing 16 places in race two, and scoring their first GT Points of the year. Throughout the year, with no testing, Redwood and Foster have been having to learn the characteristics of an unfamiliar car at each race weekend themselves, and the progress made last time out at Snetterton continued at Brands. Redwood commented "We have made great progress with the handling of the car, and the team have done a great job. Even though the Porsche manqué in GT3 this year is fundamentally off the pace, the team and us as drivers are now maximising the cars potential and this is now allowing us to compete for points, which is a massive step forward from the start of the year". This showed in the performance at the weekend. Redwood qualified P4 for race one, and Foster put in a similar paced qualification for race 2, only for the Clerk of the Course to impose a penalty on Foster for overtaking during a red flag period in qualifying. This meant for race two, the duo had to start from the pit lane with 26 cars ahead of them! RACE ONE - Race one saw two firsts, the first points for the year, and the first time that Redwood has lead a British GT Race. Redwood drove the first stint and immediately took third and pressed the Aston Martin in 2nd hard for the opening 5 laps. 2nd place was being battled out between Redwood, and the Aston Martin of Drayson and the Ascari of Jones. Jones, made it past Redwood into 3rd and then made a move on the Drayson Aston Martin for 2nd, only for the two to collide. Redwood narrowly missed the spinning Ascari and Aston, which subsequently brought out the safety car. When the safety car came in, Mortimer in the RPM Viper was leading making it an RPM one two, and Mortimer and Redwood drove away from the rest of the field. Redwood chased Mortimer hard and stayed in touching distance of the teams Viper. When the Viper of Mortimer pitted, Redwood took the race lead. Redwood pitted late and handed the car to Foster, who came out and carried on the attack. However, a clutch problem soon developed on the Porsche which left Foster a sitting duck, and whilst involved in a hard fight, Foster had to take to the gravel at Paddock. Foster lost a number of places recovering and then had to fight hard to hold onto 7th. This represented the duos best result of the year and first points haul. Foster and Redwood were delighted with the result and very encouraged by how competitive they were able to be. RACE TWO - Race two was a different story all together. With the duo having to start from the pit lane, it saw them both drive brilliant attacking stints. Foster started the race, and sliced through the field from 27th to 20th in the opening 7 laps. Progressed slowed a little for the next 5 minutes, as Foster had to chase the next pack of cars. Foster continued a good pace and captured the next pack of cars and made it up to 18th before handing over to Redwood for the second stint. Redwood continued the attack, hoping that a safety car period would bunch up the field. A safety car never came, but Redwood continued to push hard and caught and past another 9 cars, with the duo finishing 10th overall. Redwood stated "that was extremely good fun, we attacked from start to finish, and were overtaking at every point in the race, we took 10th with just three laps to go. It was a lot of hard work for no points, but still a very strong showing from the pair of us". - ends - << back to news