Aiello piles on the pressure
Laurent Aiello continued his seemingly unstoppable march towards the BTCC title when he topped the times in this week's Croft test session. The first day of the test was wrecked by rain, rendering the times inconclusive
Aiello had a 0.4s margin over the field by the end of the test, but the morning session had been topped by James Thompson's Honda, which has been off the pace in recent rounds. His team mate Peter Kox missed the test because he is racing at Le Mans in the all-Dutch Konrad Lola team.
Rickard Rydell ended up an encouraging 2nd fastest in his Volvo S40, the reigning champion still looking for his first victory of 1999. The Williams Renault Laguna's were in the lower half of the top ten, both Jason Plato and Jean-Christophe Boullion concentrating on engine reliability work after a spate of recent failures.
The next BTCC race is at Donington Park on 20th June, with Croft the venue for the next meeting a fortnight later.
Overall times from Croft:
|
1. |
Laruent Aiello |
RML Nissan |
1m20.158s |
|
2. |
Rickard Rydell |
TWR Volvo |
1m20.536s |
|
3. |
James Thompson |
WSR Honda |
1m20.575s |
|
4. |
Matt Neal |
Dynamics Nissan |
1m20.689s |
|
5. |
Yvan Muller |
T8 Vauxhall |
1m20.799s |
|
6. |
David Leslie |
RML Nissan |
1m20.814s |
|
7. |
Vincent Radermecker |
TWR Volvo |
1m20.835s |
|
8. |
Jason Plato |
Williams Renault |
1m20.860s |
|
9. |
Jean-Christophe Boullion |
Williams Renault |
1m20.971s |
|
10. |
Alain Menu |
Prodrive Ford |
1m21.212s |
|
11. |
Anthony Reid |
Prodrive Ford |
1m21.494s |
|
12. |
John Cleland |
T8 Vauxhall |
1m21.909s |
|
13. |
Mark Blair |
ADR Vauxhall |
1m22.286s |
|
14. |
Paula Cook |
DC Cook Honda |
1m22.460s |
|
15. |
Gareth Howell |
Atford Ford |
1m40.640s |
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