Sidecar stars aim for championship glory (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Sidecar stars aim for championship glory

1:00pm Saturday 13th October 2012 in Sport

THE DRIVERWOLF team of driver Roger Lovelock and passenger Kingsclere’s Rick Lawrence go into the final round of the British F1 Sidecar Championship leading by 42 points, writes Nikki Gillam.

However, with double points up for grabs at Brands Hatch on Sunday there is everything still to race for.

In the last rounds at Silverstone, in the first race Lovelock and Lawrence, pictured, held their qualifying place of third off the line.

From there they went onto a second place finish, which increased their lead over nearest rivals Scott Lawrie and James Neave who were fourth.

In race two a technical problem forced Lovelock to short shift all of the way around and nearly threw Lawrence out of the chair a number of times. Thankfully the pair survived and finished fourth, one place behind Lawrie and Neave.

In their previous outing at the famous Dutch track of Assen, the Driverwolf team started fifth on the grid on their way to a fourth place finish, while Lawrie and Neave failed to finish.

The second race saw Lovelock and Lawrence and Lawrie and Neave swapping places, making for an exciting race for the 30,000 spectators, but unfortunately for the Driverwolf team they were overtaken on the last lap.

Previous at Donington Park it proved to be a drama filled weekend.

Things started well for Lovelock and Lawrence as they qualified on pole by a reasonable margin for the first race and they led off the line and going a second a lap quicker than their rivals they opened up about an eight second gap.

Even with their amazing domination over the first nine laps the pair did not take the win. Disaster struck halfway round the final lap and they had to slow due to fuel problems, leaving their close rivals Lawrie and Neave to pass them to take the win.

Despite this Lovelock and Lawrence still managed a place on the podium coming second.

The second race saw Lovelock and Lawrence second on the grid.

They took the lead on lap three and were starting to put a little distance between themselves and Lawrie and Neave. Things were looking good but on lap seven another mechanical failure caused them to retire from the race.

They will now hope for one final push at Brands Hatch this weekend to take the title.