Fakenham driver claims second win in Mini Challenge
Fakenham driver Andrew Langley remains in the Mini Challenge title hunt going into the final two rounds of the season at Donington Park next month.
Langley enhanced his hopes of silverware after claiming his second race of the campaign with a lights-to-flag win in the second race at Croft.
Going into the final two rounds of a reduced season, Langley finds himself eighth in the standings and he said: “If we finish in the top ten I’d be very happy, and the top five I’d be ecstatic.
“We’re still learning about the car, we still don’t have a setup that I’m completely comfortable with and we need to try some more settings at the Donington test.
“So if we can finish above teams that have all the data at their fingertips it’s a great achievement for all the team.”
On his latest race triumph at the weekend, the Norfolk Mini Racing Team driver added: “I love being at the front, I don’t feel the pressure as I can brake where I want and it’s up to me to control.
“I knew if we could get a good start and survive the first corner we’d be in with a good shout.
“Fair play to Martin Poole, he was quicker than me in corners where I was leaning hard on my front left and I was controlling the pace going into them and could ease away on the rest of the circuit and we were pulling away together and were looking good.
“Unfortunately it all ended on a safety car with not much racing and it does feel a bit of a hollow win, but we have a trophy and I can’t believe we did it on TV again.”
A safety car plagued race and saw a reverse of the top ten from race one with Thruxton race winner Langley leading the 29-strong field away from Martin Poole.
Langley and Poole pull away from Lee Pearce in third before another safety car was called.
Despite the great work from the Croft marshals, they were unable to get the race restarted before the clock reached zero, allowing Langley to claim his second win of the year.
Langley said: “We didn’t do too much racing but I think I could have held off Martin (Poole) for the rest of that event.
“I’d set my car up because I wanted to go, as I knew the tyres would get a bit cooked, so I took that chance and tried to hold him off. It paid off and we lucked out with the safety car but I’ll take it.”
The Coopers will return for their final two rounds of the season at Donington Park on November 7-8.
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