'Weekend to forget', says Reddy
Tarun Reddy had a difficult seventh round in the MSA Formula championship at Knockhill circuit where he had two retirements in the three races.
Photo by: Tarun Reddy
With the other Indian, Ameya Vaidyanathan choosing to do BRDC F4 at Snetterton, it was only Reddy (Double R Racing) competing this weekend in MSA.
The Indian driver came into the weekend sitting ninth in the championship. He started the Knockhill round finishing sixth, eighth and 12th in the three practice sessions.
He was within a second of the leader in FP2 and FP3. Ricky Collard (TRS Arden Junior Racing Team) topped the first session while Daniel Ticktum (Fortec Motorsports) headed the timesheets in the other two sessions.
Spin in qualifying
The qualifying session saw Lando Norris (Carlin) on pole for the first race while Ticktum and Collard finished second and third respectively.
Ticktum got pole for the third race after clocking the second-best time in the session with Norris behind him and Collard third again.
Reddy finished 13th and was only 0.850s away from the leader (best time). An unfortunate spin in the session meant he couldn't improve on his time.
"Having arrived at Knockhill without any prior testing was always gonna be hard," Reddy told Motorsport.com.
"The spin in qualifying was extremely unfortunate and put me on the back foot for the races," he added.
Points in Race 1; retirements in the other races
Reddy had a good first race where he steadily moved up the order after starting 13th. He was running eighth and finished that way, but a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits dropped him to 10th in the standings.
Up ahead, Norris took victory from rookie Enaam Ahmed (TRS Arden Racing Junior Team) and Sennan Fielding (JHR Developments).
An incident filled second race saw Reddy crashing out in the opening lap after having started 10th. Jessica Hawkins (Falcon Motorsport) collided with Reddy which ended both their races.
Fielding won the race from Colton Herta (Carlin) and Josh Smith (Fortec Motorsport) with only 12 drivers finishing the race.
In the third race, Reddy started from 13th and was up at eighth by lap nine, looking for a strong finish. On lap 18, he was hit by a car from behind which ended his race.
Reddy stated that a top six finish was on cards for him until the retirement. The race was won by championship leader Collard with Herta second and Fielding third.
"This weekend has definitely been a one to forget," said a disappointed Reddy.
"I am hoping to change things around in the next round at Rockingham and hopefully we can get back on the podium."
With a difficult weekend, Reddy dropped a place to 10th in the championship with 80 points as Collard leads with 275 points.
The championship heads to Rockingham in the first week of September (4th-6th) for the eighth round.
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