Roche clinches victory in nail biting finish

Tom Roche winner of the first Max5 Championship round at Silverstone grabbed victory in the final few yards from Charles Plumley and Brett Walter with 0.263 seconds separating all three.

Qualifying; Conditions dry

In dry conditions 15 cars came out for qualifying for the second round of the Max5 Championship with Tom Roche, winner of the first round at Silverstone, quickly settling into the pace and again being the man to catch.

The session was generally uneventful with Brett Walter and Paul Sheard calling into the pits, Brett to change tyres and Paul to adjust the suspension.

Mahinder Vaswani in his first race of the season had the fourth fastest time earning him a place on the second row of the grid.

Grid positions:

1. Tome Roche      1:24.039
2. Matt Robinson   1:24.624
3. Andy Burge      1:24.816

  Race: Conditions Dry

The grid lined up bearing little resemblance to the result at Silverstone four weeks ago but right from the start Tom Roche got away well but was soon overtaken by Mark Pierpoint who lead for the next two laps until a spin put him to the rear of the field.

Brett Walter, who started from the seventh row was soon mixing it with the field ahead and moved through to challenge Roche, meanwhile small groups of cars were having their own closely fought race with Justin Newnam, third at Silverstone, having a tussle with Jonathan Halliwell Paul Sheard and Joachim Ritter until midway through the race Joachim spun leaving the remainder to fight amongst themselves.

Up front the lead was constantly changing between Tom Roche and Brett Walter whilst slowly Charles Plumley clawed back time to join the front two by lap 12.

The three then continued to change leader three and four times each lap with the three of them entering the final corner side by side with Tom just managing to come past Charles yards before the chequered flag in what was probably the closest race of the day.

Paul Sheard failed to finish after a minor incident with Justin Newnam which is the first Max5 non finish for Paul in over 50 Max5 starts.

Fastest lap of the day went to Richard Breland in a time of 1:24.604 with an average speed of 78.72mph.

Final Result

1. Tom Roche              21:35.600       Average speed 77.10 mph
2. Charles Plumley       21:35.712       Average speed 77.10 mph
3. Brett Walter             21:35.863       Average speed 77.09 mph

Fastest Lap Richard Breland 1:24.604 Average speed 78.72 mph

The next round will be at Snetterton on Sunday 25 May.

B. Marsh