Broadhurst endures difficult weekend on debut

The BARC Formula Renault circus moved to Croft (Darlington) for the third and fourth rounds of the championship where Michael was determined to make a good impression for his new Hillspeed team. Having never been to the circuit before, Michael had a massive mountain to climb. "I always knew that this would be a particularly difficult meeting to conquer as I barely knew the layout of the track and had never driven the car in the wet before!" The weekend got off to a bad start when Michael crashed out of Friday testing in the difficult early conditions, missing the rest of the session. "I could not have imagined a worse way to kick of the day; I felt terrible for felt like such a stupid mistake. The team did a fantastic and very thorough job of putting the car back together; it was just unfortunate that we were not able to get any more running in".

It was straight into a 30 minute qualifying session on Saturday morning and the team had no choice but to opt for a full wet setup due to the atrocious conditions. With virtually no track time under his belt, Michael was under a heavy pressure to qualify the car in a position respective of his and the team's ability. "My ambition was to settle in with the car at first to avoid making the mistake I made yesterday and then really go for it at the end of the session". Michael's extremely fast progress was brought to an abrupt halt by two red flags, which forced the session to be shortened. "The session was so frustrating because I could easily have gone a lot faster had it not been for second red flag. Our data proved that we could have easily qualified at least seventh or eighth on the grid".

Starting 16th on the grid for race 1, Michael made another electric start and had already gained ground by turn 1. With some excellent overtaking and other drivers struggling in the difficult conditions, he was up to 11th place after the first couple of laps. By lap 5, Michael was within striking distance of 9th place and 2 championship points. "I knew that I was so much faster than the guys ahead and was getting ready to put a move on one into Sunny In". Before he could make a move, James Green spun in the middle of the corner forcing Michael to run wide and avoid an almost certain accident. "I knew that if I had of tried to take the corner I would simply have understeered into the side of him; after yesterday it was not a risk I was willing to take". Having had all his hard work undone, Michael came home in 12th place.

Race 2 witnessed the most dramatic start all season. As the cars made their way onto the grid, heavy rain began to fall forcing the teams to put the cars onto a wet setup. Michael was able to recompose himself for the start of the race and made another superb get-away, picking cars off into turn one, before taking another three cars around the outside of Hawthorn! "I felt really comfortable with the car at the start and was able to push quite hard in the opening laps". Michael had gained significant ground on the opening laps but was forced to run wide at Sunny In during a downshift problem. "I'm still not sure what happened but from that point we seemed to pick up a balance problem that got worse throughout the race". From there, Michael was struggling with a lot of understand and continued to lose ground before coming home in 12th place. Michael's team-mate James Littlejohn took a well deserved win after starting eighth on the grid.

"This was definitely the most difficult race weekend I have had but it was probably one where I have learnt the most! The team did a fantastic job all weekend and underlined their professionalism and dedication with a dominant victory today. Hopefully I can repay their efforts with a good performance at Snetterton in June".