18th August 2007

Northern Ireland saloon car ace Andrew Herron is bidding for a top eight result at Kent’s Brands Hatch Indy Circuit tomorrow during the ninth round of the ELF Renault Clio Cup, the category rookie aiming to consolidate 10th position in the championship standings.

After enjoying a return to the old Clio Cup format of one qualifying session and two points-scoring rounds at Snetterton three weeks ago, where Andrew achieved a career best fourth place during the eighth round of the season, the series reverted to its 2007 qualification race format today due to the large number of entries.

Qualifying as part of Group One, the 19-year-old from Dromore in Co. Down produced an excellent performance, especially considering he missed almost the entire pre-event test session on Friday morning after an unfortunate excursion at Paddock Hill Bend.

With far less running on the 1.2-mile Indy Circuit than any of his rivals, Andrew headed into his 15-minute qualifying session with a task ahead of him but he produced an excellent performance to achieve the fifth fastest time with a lap of 53.431 seconds (80.75mph).

However, post-qualifying scrutineering checks resulted in three drivers being excluded from the results due to technical infringements. Notably for the Northern Irishman, Barry Benham and Andrew Jordan – who had both qualified ahead of him – had their times disallowed and so Andrew would start his qualification race from an improved third spot.

With hopes high for a strong showing in order to achieve a solid starting position for Sunday afternoon’s 20-lap feature race, Andrew initially seemed to get away from the line fairly well but his progress was stunted after his Clio developed wheel-spin.

Slipping to sixth position on the run to Paddock Hill Bend, the JHR Developments star remained in close company with the top five cars and on lap four an opportunity to pass looked likely to present itself when former Clio Cup Champion Jonathan Fildes made a mistake at Graham Hill Bend.

Although Fildes did slip from fourth to fifth place, the Irish driver just managed to keep Andrew at bay on the run to Surtees. Remaining on Fildes’ tail for the next couple of laps, the Brian Herron Contracts-backed racer soon settled for sixth position and with it 12th place on the grid for tomorrow afternoon’s points-scoring feature race.

“There were opportunities to try and pass (Jonathan) Fildes but they could have ended up with him hitting the wall and I didn’t want to do that”, explained Andrew, “You’ve got to race with respect for other drivers, sometimes it’s better to back off rather than keeping your foot in.

“After the bad start I think I started to overdrive a little bit so I looked in the mirror, saw that the guy behind was a fair way down the road and made the decision to settle for sixth place. I took the opportunity to try a few different lines which could work for me in the main race tomorrow – we’ll have to wait and see what happens.”

Andrew added: “Ideally I’d like to finish in the top eight tomorrow so I can score good points for the championship. Some of the drivers around me in the standings such as Dan Eagling and (Mark) Speller didn’t have great results today so I do have a chance to gain on them if all goes well. I know I’m quick, I just need to get my starts sorted out!”

Round nine of the 2007 ELF Renault Clio Cup is timetabled to start at approximately 14.10 tomorrow, Sunday, 19th August.