Josh Price makes a solid start to the 2016 Renault Clio Cup campaign, leaving Brands Hatch 8th overall in the standings and 2nd overall in the Graduate Cup
The 2016 season kicked off at the short but fast Brand Hatch Indy Circuit in Kent for the opening round of the Clio Cup Championship.
On the smallest track in the calendar, laptimes were always going to be very close throughout the grid.This
was evident in qualifying, as BMR and RCIB Insurance Racing backed
driver Josh Price set a laptime just 0.136s off the fastest lap, ending
up 5th overall in the end of qualifying classifications.
However his
2nd best lap was 0.2s slower than his fastest, meaning for the second
race Price would have to start from 12th on the grid, despite only being
0.35s off pole!
Round 1 of the championship saw Josh Price
squeezed down two positions are the end of the opening lap. Price kept
his composure and sought after his rival infront. Price and rival Max
Coates would then be embroiled in a closely faught contest all the way
to the chequered flag.
The pair would be racing around within 0.4s of
each other throughout the entire second half of the race as Price
finished the opening round in 7th position.
Round 2 saw Price start from the outside of the 6th row. The BMR backed teenager made a great start to launch himself up to 6th position with some clever positioning through the first lap, taking 5th at the start of lap 2. A train of cars from 3rd to 8th began a race long scrap all bidding to make it onto the podium. Price was dropped down to 7th on lap 18 after being forced wide in the train of cars which he would finish at the end of the race.
However post race, it was deemed that Josh Price had benefited from exceeding track limits at turn 4, meaning he was handed a 5 second penalty to his race time, dropping him from 7th to 12th in the confirmed classification.I
t was a solid start to the season,
albeit with some misfortune with the track limit penalty denying Price a
larger point score. Josh Price is currently 8th overall in the
standings with 24 points.
The next round takes place in just two weeks time at Donington Park on the 16th-17th April.