IN circuit racing, Ballylickey's Robert Cronin made a good start to the Protyre Motorsport Ginetta Championship in Donington Park where he took a podium position and a fourth place to move into equal second in the series after its opening encounter.
On Saturday's 20-minute race Cronin put the Elite Motorsport run Cronin's Centra/Keohane Readymix car on P7 on the 20-car grid and went on to finish fourth.
Sunday's second round was certainly more eventful and featured a pit stop during the 40-minute race. From P5, Cronin made a great start and by the end of the very first lap was into second place and remained there until the ninth lap when he was overtaken by Archie Clark, who won the opening round. On Lap 13 Clark pitted while Cronin did likewise, albeit some three laps later. All the pit stops were completed by Lap 18 with Cronin in fourth place.
A penalty (33.533s) was imposed for a pit-stop infringement on Hadley Simpson that elevated Cronin into third in classification behind race leader Clark and Nick White, who had a slight gap on Cronin. As the race progressed, the safety car was deployed for several laps to allow the track to be cleared of some debris and resulted in a two-lap shoot-out to the chequered flag.
Cronin came under immense pressure from Jack Collins as they raced wheel to wheel with Collins edging through during the final lap, however, with some fine race-craft Cronin regained the spot within seconds and crossed the line in third. Clark took his second win of the weekend to lead the series on 107 points from Nick White and Cronin, both with 74 points.
Meanwhile, in the Ginetta Junior series, Colin Cronin also netted fourth place in his opening race. On Sunday's second race he started from P3 for race two but lost touch with the leading pack on just the second lap, a trip to a gravel trap on lap three added to his woes before he eventually finished seventh. He was fifth in his third and final race of the weekend and lies fifth in the series, 31 points behind Rocco Coronel, who won two of the three races. The next round of the championship is at the Silverstone GP circuit on April 26/27.
