Another Podium For Morgan

Alex Morgan continued his impressive return to racing as he captured a podium at Donington Park in the Renault UK Clio Cup, the Team Pyro driver maintaining the second place championship position he secured at Brands Hatch. Alex started off the weekend at Donington Park as competitive as he left it at Brands Hatch. In a hard-fought qualifying session he set the third fastest time to line up on the second row in both of the weekend’s races. Saturday’s 14-lap race saw him line up on the grid behind Paul Rivett and Josh Files. He initially held third, having run as high as second for the first few corners, but Mike Bushell managed to find a way past to push Alex into fourth. A fierce battle ensued with Alex defending against Jordan Stilp until the flag where the two finished 0.4s apart. Alex started from third again for Sunday’s 14-lap race, this time with Josh Files starting from pole and Paul Rivett alongside him on the front row. In the startline melee, Alex was shuffled down to fifth behind Rivett, Whorton-Eales, Files and Bushell. On lap four Alex got a wheel on the curb on the exit of turn 1 which kicked the back of the car out and forced an off-track excursion. He quickly rejoined the track in sixth and shortly thereafter took advantage of an incident between Whorton-Eales and Bushell to move up to fourth behind Files, Rivett and Giddings. On lap eight Alex began putting pressure on Giddings for third, and finally made his move two laps before the end to claim the final podium position. Alex said:

This weekend was always going to be difficult to live up to expectations after Brands, but it was a good weekend and I’m happy with another podium and maintaining second in the championship. I did everything I could in qualifying and pulled out two good laps. It was always going to be difficult to separate Files and Rivett as they are very experienced at Donington. I had a really good start in the first race but I was disappointed to not maintain the podium position. On the day Bushell was quicker than me but I got some good points. I definitely wanted a podium on Sunday, however after a tricky start with cars flying everywhere, I knew I had my work cut out. After the off track incident I managed to maintain a consistent and fast race pace to close on Giddings and pass him earning me the podium I was after. Hopefully Thruxton will be a good one for us.

Alex is second in the championship on 101 points, 13 points behind new leader Paul Rivett. The next race weekend takes place at Thruxton on 4-5 May.