The third weekend of the 750mc ClioSport Championship ensued a 488 mile round trip to the idyllic Croft Race Circuit in Darlington. Often a driver favourite, Croft offers an exhilaratingly fast lap, ensuring close racing throughout. In 2022 JG Racing showed great pace at the circuit, securing the Clio 182 lap record, and had hoped to follow with strong results this year.

Friday testing saw fantastic pace across the board. With the weather on our side, we were able to utilise this time to build a successful strategy for qualifying on Saturday.

Qualifying

A strong showing from the team saw great results all round. Peter O’Connor #72 put a time in that saw him line up P2 (Class A) and lined up front row overall. Jason Pelosi #77 in his Team Deranged 197 lined up P2 (Class B) and Josh North #10 driving the JG Racing DUS Group LTD sponsored team car managed a P3 (Class A), his strongest qualifying in his debut season.

Unfortunately, due to a technical issue, Alex Burridge was unable to qualify and would subsequently miss race one.

Class A

Class B

Race One

Race one saw things really heat up. With a clean if not slightly chaotic start, Peter O’Connor comfortably settled in to P2 in class where he would eventually finish the race while Jason Pelosi fought hard with Owain Rosser for the spoils in Class B but had to settle for P2 over the line.

Josh North, the Revitupuk sponsored driver, came home in P4 (Class A) finishing three hundredths away from the final podium position with Alex Kilbey #85 finishing in P6 (Class A).

Class A

Class B

Race Two

Race two featured another fantastic drive from Peter O’Connor scoring another P2 (Class A) and finishing P4 overall. Following his mechanic issues in testing, the team managed to get Alex Burridge out for Race 2, but having started from the back of the grid (unable to Qualify) Alex was forced to produce an outstanding drive to P5 (Class A). After a tough Saturday, he showed great resilience to fight his way through the pack. Alex Kilbey had another strong P6 (Class A) grabbing some great Championship points.

Unfortunately, due to contact at the start of the race, Josh North suffered damage to his exhaust. Despite best efforts from the team to get the car back on track, it would not hold and subsequently did not finish the race.

Race Three

The final race of the weekend saw Peter O’Connor produce a hattrick of podiums securing another P2 (Class A). It is fantastic to see Pete come back so strong after a tough start to the season. An equally strong showing from Alex Burridge saw him secure P3 (Class A) – to finish the weekend with a podium, after missing qualifying and Race 1 was thoroughly impressive.

Alex Kilbey came home in P4 (Class A), yet another great points haul towards his Championship battle and Josh North, after his DNF in race two, battled from the back of the grid to finish in a very respectable P6 (Class A).

A fantastic weekend for the whole team sees us go into the next round on a high, aiming to build on the results from Croft.

A special thanks to all the support team at JG Racing (Especially Adam Tucker) whose efforts through the weekend made these results happen.