Ahead of next week’s Formula Challenge race, we take a look back on the last race in Austria.

After the seventh round of the season at the Circuit Paul Ricard, STAX Racing remained second in the Teams’ Championship with 277 points, behind Red Arrow Racing (390 points) and in front of Royal Blue Racing (184). Leaving France, Adrian Campfield was seventh in the Drivers’ Championship while Chris Shepherd (2nd) was 21 points behind Championship leader Chris Butcher.

Race 1: After a very good qualifying for the team, Chris started the race from P2, behind Cenobite Motorsport’s Matthew Williams and directly in front of his teammate. Adrian had a very good start and attacked Williams going into T1 but couldn’t complete the pass on the following long straight. He was, however, able to keep Championship Leader Chris Butcher behind him. Unfortunately, on Lap 6, he slightly overshot the second turn, compromising his exit speed. This enabled Butcher to close the gap and head into T3 alongside Adrian. For the right-hander, Adrian was on the inside, still slightly ahead of Butcher. The cars made contact and spun into the gravel trap. Both drivers headed to the pits for repairs. Adrian rejoined the race in 30th place with no chance of scoring points and thus decided to retire from the race.

Chris race was a lot more succesful. He passed Williams right at the start and was able to defend his lead against the Englishman in the following laps. The Cenobite Motorsport’s driver tried to attack multiple times, but his best shot was when he was right behind Chris on lap 15. The two drivers were going into Turn 2 side-by-side, but Williams braked too late and overshot the corner, allowing Chris to re-take the lead on the switchback. Williams attempted one last overtake a lap later but ran wide in Turn 3 and Chris went on to win the race.

Race 2: Adrian started the second race way down the grid in P29. After some frantic first laps where he gained a lot of positions, he again had a race-ending incident when he attacked Dan Kell going into Turn 3 only to be rear-ended by James Early.

Chris started the race from P13. Initially, he lost a couple of positions as the midfield tangled in Turn 1, but was back in P13 by Lap 4. After overtaking both Leonov and Muru earlier, he attacked Red Arrow Racing’s David Jundt in Turn 4. There was a slight contact and Chris lost one place. However, shortly after, Shepherd’s Championship rival Chris Butcher uncharacteristically spun aswell, dropping from P7 to P12. Meanwhile, Chris Shepherd continued to overtake people and, by the end of the race, he was right under David Jundt’s gearbox again. He raced him to the finish line and finished the race in P8, just thousands of a second behind Jundt.

After his win and a strong second race, Chris Shepherd is now leading the Driver’s Championship six points ahead of Chris Butcher. Adrian Campfield is seventh in the Championship. We are still second in the Teams’ Championship behind Red Arrow Racing and ahead of Cenobite Motorsports.

Update: Chris received a penalty for making contact in the second race. This means that Chris Butcher stayed ahead in the Championship. We appealed the decision of the Disciplinary Committee.

The next round of the season will be held at Silverstone next Tuesday. As always, you can find the broadcast and the results tables of the last round below.

Broadcast

Results