The Alfa Romeo championship heads to Oulton Park this weekend for the final race meeting of 2018 with 2016 champion Tom Hill in a strong position to regain his title.
His nearest challenger, Richard Ford, is unable to compete in the final two races leaving third placed Paul Webster as the only challenger who is in a position to overhaul Tom’s points total. However, it would need a strong points scoring performance on Paul’s part together with a major failure to score on Tom’s part to bring about an unlikely twist in the tale of this championship! Missing the rounds at Silverstone and Brands Hatch for family reasons in mid-season have sadly proved crucial for Paul who now needs an improbable turn of events to lift the Championship title. But as we all know, in racing anything can happen and often does…
The fight for overall second is likely to be a closer battle between Paul and Scott Austin, with Richard Ford in a position to profit with a Championship podium position should one or the other significantly slip up on the final weekend. Scott Austin has continued to put in improving performances and capable of challenging Paul for the class lead in the championship despite an obvious power deficiency. Paul and Scott will be up against former Champion Roger Evans who beat both of them to take the class wins at Anglesey in May, and that is likely to make their chances more difficult.
Third place in the Power Trophy class has already been guaranteed for Simon McFie who is a non starter this weekend as is his brother Chris. It could be that a certain newly arrived daughter has something to do with that! Many congrats to Simon and Annouska – we all hope everything is going well! Joining the Power Trophy class this weekend will be David Lambourn. David has campaigned a 33 for many years now on an occasional basis, normally around the end of the season, but has recently been working on the build of a new car – a 3.0 156. He has entered his trusty 33 this weekend but we are looking forward to seeing his new car on track in due course. Finally, former TS class winner James Ford will be returning to the track in a Power Trophy 156 and that could put the cat amongst the pigeons! Welcome back James!
In the Twin Spark Cup, Tom Hill is already confirmed as Class winner with Richard Ford not competing but Richard’s second place position could be overhauled by Dave Messenger or Kristian Leith, but not both, if either driver scores highly over the final two races. Looking at the points table the battle in this class is more likely to be for third place honours between Dave and Kristian with the pair effectively separated by only two points after dropped scores come into play, although they each have a mathematical chance of taking second in which case Richard would be confirmed as the third placed driver.
Ricky Losselli will be hoping to put in a strong performance at a demanding circuit he hasn’t raced at before. Chris Healey will be back in the black 156 that he shares with Mel Freeman and it would be great to see Chris go well here. Andy Inman will be hoping that the electrical problems that sidelined him at Rockingham have been sorted out, and Mike Tydeman and Cip Nistorica make a welcome return after missing the last 2 rounds.
The Twin Spark Cup class winner in the second race this weekend will win the Kevin Griffiths Trophy, awarded in memory of the former Alfa Romeo Championship driver who passed away in 2001. It has been awarded every year since then, Andy Hancock being the most recent winner.
