FORMULA RENAULT 2.0 NEC – HOCKENHEIM HORROR SHOW FOR MATTY

A tough weekend got a whole lot tougher for Matty following his retirement from the first Formula Renault 2.0 NEC race at the Hockenheimring in Germany this afternoon.

Matty’s race lasted just over half a lap before another competitor ran into the back of his car under breaking, forcing the AVF driver out of the race with the resultant damage

With the result of race 1 determining the starting position of the weekend’s final race, Matty will be forced to start from the back row of the grid on Sunday afternoon.

The crash means two out of the weekend’s three races have been ruined for the 18 year old and that a strong drive in race two will be his best opportunity to minimise the ground lost in the overall championship chase.

Following difficult practice and qualifying sessions, where he struggled to hook up quick individual sector times into one plum lap, Matty made an excellent start to his opening lap, getting away cleanly from the lights and leapfrogging from 15^th on the grid up to seventh by the time of the crash.

While a lack of track knowledge relative to the majority of this weekend’s field hampered his out and out performance runs, his consistency over a stint would have made the remainder of race one interesting had he been able to run his own race.

As a result of Saturday’s events, the North East driver has dropped to 10^th in the championship standings with most of his main rivals scoring strongly.

After such an impressive start to today’s race however, should he be able to repeat that getaway tomorrow, Matty has the skills and ability to score as strongly as possible.