Multiple British Stockhatch Champion Tony Lynch found himself in the thick of the action during the fifth round of the Quaife MSA British Rallycross Championship at Mallory Park.
Tony, from Westhoughton near Wigan, went into the weekend looked to close the gap to Dave Bellerby in the Suzuki Swift Challenge standings after a tough outing in round four of the year in Belgium, where an incident at the start of the final left the Team Geriatric driver down in sixth place.
However, the opening heat of the Mallory Park event left Tony on the back foot after he was excluded from the results following a collision with rival Ryan Lawford. While dicing for position on the opening lap, Lawford left the door open for Tony to make a move up the inside only to then turn in to take the corner.
The resultant contact saw Lawford crash out of the race and bring out the red flags, with the incident being investigated by the stewards. Despite the TV footage showing there was no intent on Tony’s part, the decision was taken to exclude him from the results of the heat – which Tony had one when it was restarted.
Delays to the racing programme meant only two heats were run to decide the grid for the final, with Tony taking third place from the back row, which left him fourth on the grid for the final.
Having jumped ahead of both Steve Hill and Chris Scott off the line, Tony tried to make a move around the outside of turn one to take the lead from Bellerby but was unable to make the move stick and was then forced to chase his rival for the remainder of the race.
Tony remains second in the Suzuki Swift standings following the weekend, 31 points behind Bellerby with three rounds remaining.
“The first heat was clearly disappointing and put us on the back foot,” he said. “What happened with Ryan was an unfortunate incident as the gap was there before he turned in and we touched. There was no intent as the stewards saw, so the penalty left us with work to do for the rest of the event.
“From fourth on the grid, second was a good result in the final as it was always going to be difficult to beat Dave from there. We needed to get ahead at the start and did well to get past Steve and Chris but Dave was able to control it at the front and keep me behind. While we always want to win, we can’t be disappointed with second this time around.”
