It was a tough encounter for 21 year old Thomas Randle in the final round of the Formula Renault EuroCup championship at Spain’s circuit de Barcelona Cataluña last weekend.
The team struggled with pace all weekend with Randle qualifying the highest in the team for race one in 13th place. Randle managed to bounce forward and work his way up to finish tenth in the race, however unfortunately a post-race technical infringement meant Randle was disqualified, shadowing his efforts in making up those valuable positions.
Race two didn’t last long for Randle, after a thirteen car pileup on the exit of turn one on lap one left him taking evasive action, only to be hit in the rear by another competitor and forced into the gravel and out of the race.
Going into the final race of the weekend, Randle was made aware by the team that the car had a fundamental issue sustained from the race two contact which made the car incredibly difficult to drive. After avoiding a late race accident in front of him, Randle could only salvage a 14th place finish.
"It has certainly been a character building weekend as they say," said Randle.
"It was disappointing to be disqualified in race one as we would have scored points for eight as two wildcards finished ahead, and those points would have turned out to be very valuable after how the rest of the weekend went.
Race two was frustrating, not making it past turn one, but amazingly that was only my second DNF of the year after 36 races, which include TRS and my LMP3 races.
I was surprised how much damaged was sustained from the impact in race two, and unfortunately the car was quite hard to drive in the final race of the year, but I was just happy to be able to go wheel to wheel with my competitors and see the chequered flag.
I would just like to thank my parents, Rusty French and Chris Jewell for everything they have done, the team – AVF- and all my supporters. The Formula Renault EuroCup has certainly improved me as a driver, and the numerous top ten and top five finishes were fantastic after only contesting the second half of the season.”