UK 2.0: Will Bratt Knockhill Saturday notes

BRATT AIMS FOR QUALIFYING TOP 10 AT KNOCKHILL

Formula Renault UK race-winner Will Bratt is aiming for improvements in tomorrow's round seven and eight qualifying sessions at Knockhill, this morning's official pre-event test at the Scottish circuit ending unfortunately early for the 18-year-old Scorpio Motorsport ace.

Having lapped strongly during the first half of the three-hour session on old tyres, a switch to fresh rubber was expected to see Will improve his best time by several 10ths of a second. But an uncharacteristic excursion off the 1.3-mile circuit, with approximately an hour of testing remaining, curtailed his practice early.

Will's best lap of 48.874 seconds (95.65mph) was only seven 10ths of a second adrift of the pace-setting time,underlining the competitiveness of Formula Renault UK,but in tomorrow's pair of qualifying sessions at the Fife venue, the Adderbury teenager is focused on being much closer to the front of the field.

"It was unfortunate to miss such a large part of the session, the car under-steered quite a lot on the newer tyres which wasn't something we were expecting", explained Will.

"We were hoping to finish the test inside the top 10 and without the off I'm confident that's where we would have been as we were quite quick until that point. I was happy with the feel of the car on old tyres early on in the session but when we switched to newer rubber we did have a few problems with the balance.

"The team is looking into why we had the under-steer problems but we're certain things will be better in qualifying tomorrow. We need two good results for the championship so we'll be satisfied with top 10 grid starts for both races."

Following a timetable change last week, qualifying for round seven of the Formula Renault UK Championship is now scheduled to take place at 13.25 tomorrow, Saturday, 17th June, with round eight qualifying set to commence at 16.30.

On Sunday, 18th June, the seventh round of the season is expected to get underway at approximately 12.00 with round eight scheduled to start at 15.45. Unfortunately, there will be no televisioncoverage of the Formula Renault UK Championship's visit to Knockhill.

-www.willbratt.com