4th October 05

Fiona ends in style

Environmentally-friendly girl racer Fiona Leggate capped her debut season in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship with a fine set of performances in the final three races of the series at Brands Hatch.



Racing on a mix of 90% Bio-ethanol environmentally sustainable fuel and 10% conventional fuel, farmer’s daughter Fiona was dicing with her regular competitors all through the weekend to finish with a fine tenth place in the overall standings and seventh in class in the final race of the day at the challenging world famous Brands Hatch Grand Prix track.

It was a weekend of three races where Fiona had started from the back of the field for the first after missing the qualifying session after her Tech-Speed team performed a gearbox rebuild.

Race one saw Fiona work her way forwards from starting on the back row of the seventeen strong grid to finish in thirteenth place, setting her up well for race two. With another fine getaway in the second race Leggate had worked her way towards the top ten when the slowing antics of a competitor ahead trying to position himself in tenth place, and the reverse grid pole for the final race, meant that Fiona found herself compromised heading into Graham Hill Bend.

Contact ensued, and although the green and white Astra continued on its way from the incident, a steering arm was broken, meaning a return to the pits and retirement from the race.

The third and final race of the day saw once more Fiona at the back but with impressive resolve the Lincolnshire lass kept out of the trouble elsewhere on track and found herself finishing in tenth in the overall standings at the end of the race.

Whilst the rest of the male drivers had grid girls thanks to MAXIM magazine’s ‘Little Black Book,’ Fiona had her very own grid guy, resplendent in the same tight black lycra as the girls, proving quite a sight for Fiona behind the wheel and Fiona’s grid guy was certainly seized-upon by ITV commentary team member, Vicki Butler Henderson.

It has been a strong debut for Fiona in the touring cars, which have been televised over the year on ITV.

“The first race was pretty uneventful,” said Fiona. “The second race of course people were battling for tenth place and I went down the inside of Rob Collard into Graham Hill and he turned in and we had a little bit of a collision, he spun and I broke my steering. I was really, really disappointed as I wanted to get a good result in that race.”

“The third race was good as I got tenth and I also got the fastest lap that I’d done all weekend so I’ve made a step forward again.”

Fiona was keen to celebrate her success with her fellow drivers at the end of the season and raised a toast to the BTCC where she hopes to be racing for a full season in 2006.

“After I’ve got some winter testing under my belt I hope to be mid-field and maybe even to the front. Let’s keep fingers crossed.”

In good spirits she reflected over her year. “I’ve learnt loads this year, every race meeting I’ve got to I’ve seemed to have made a step forwards every time.”

Taken from http://www.girlracer.co.uk