Gaffney 's good start

Testing in the pouring rain earlier in the week had been encouraging for Gaffney, setting second quickest time in his Fullspec Solutions supported Van Diemen RF03.

Sunday though, dawned bright and sunny and qualifying started well with Gaffney sitting in fourth place until an excursion into the gravel ended his qualifying run, dropping him down the order to a disappointing 12th in the 16car field.

The first race started badly for the teenager with a slow getaway dropping him down to second to last at the end of the first lap. With some consistent lapping Gaffney clawed his way back through the field to finish a credible eighth at the end of the 25-lap race. That gave him a starting place on the fourth row of the grid for the second race later in the day.

A good start in race two saw Gaffney immediately gain a place at the first corner only for the race to be red flagged after an incident.

The restart was equally as good for Gaffney and he quickly settled into a good race for fifth place which he took from Robert Howe with ten laps to go.

He then had to fiercely defend his position from the three cars immediately behind, the group delighting the crowd with their close racing. The pressure was relieved on Gaffney when with three laps remaining another red flag incident brought a premature end to the race.

"Qualifying and the first race wasn't a good start to the day " said Gaffney afterwards, " But the second race was much better. I really enjoyed the racing but I must say that I was relieved to see the red flag as I was under enormous pressure from the three guys behind.

Overall though pretty pleased with the start to the season".

The third round of the championship is back at Brands Hatch on Monday, May 2 with Gaffney lying in sixth place in the championship with 40 points, 20 behind leader Neil Tofts.

Published: 22/04/2005