The season long duel between RAW Motorsports team mates Dominik Jackson and Steve Burgess was expected to go down to the wire at Silverstone, as both sought the Radical Challenge crown. Jackson gained the upperhand in qualifying, placing his SR3 RSX on pole by 0.721 secs, but both over two seconds clear of third paced Jerome De Sadeleer. “I just nailed it and had really good pace at the end,” he said.Race 1:The weather forecast had been fairly grim for the whole weekend and played it’s apart from the start. The morning rain had ceased, but with standing water wets were the primary tyre choice.
The first lap was behind the safety car, but from the green flag both Jackson and Burgess started to go clear. But as Jackson continued to consolidate his lead, Burgess began to lose ground and on lap four, he lost out to De Sadeleer who immediately pulled away too.“The wet tyres went off very quickly and I was just counting the time to the stops,” said Burgess.Marcelo Marateotto had made his customary quick start, gaining three places on the opening lap. But his hold on fourth came under threat too as Kristian Jeffrey and Brian Caudwell closed in. By lap eight Marateotto had slipped to sixth, while just outside the top 10 RAW’s John Macleod and Brian Harvey duelled for 11th.Despite having a seven second lead Jackson was first to pit, but rejoined still on his wet tyres. Burgess came in from fourth place and changed to slicks and was soon challenging for the lead. “I had totally dominated the first half, but had some mis-communication at my stop and had to continue on wets. It got me out with the lead still as the others were changing, but it soon became irrelevant,” he explained.Marateotto also suffered as the track dried. “I had lost time changing tyres, but had a really good wet set-up. “As it dried though it just got worse and worse,” he said.Out of Brooklands on lap 11 Burgess was ahead and quickly opened a decisive gap, as Jackson lost out to both Caudwell and De Sadeleer two laps later.For Burgess it was a clear win, which he had hoped kept him in with a chance of the title. “My radio had stopped working, so I just got my head down and went for it,” he explained.
Jackson had continued to struggle for grip but had managed to hold onto fourth until the last lap, but through Brooklands and Luffield he had Jeffrey pressing and was forced to surrender the place in the run to the flag. He was promoted back to fourth however, when a post-race penalty was issued to Brian Caudwell.The Macleod and Harvey duel finally went in Macleod’s favour, for 10th and 11th places. “That was a great fight with Brian but he kept spinning,” said Macleod. “I might have spun in a few places,” Harvey admitted.
Down in 12th was a subdued Elliott Goodman, with father Rod 15th, while Barry Liversidge and Marateotto completed the RAW octet.The title chase didn’t go down to the wire however, as neither of Sunday’s races took place due to heavy rain and standing water. So it was declared a championship 1-2 for the Banbury based team, and 5 out of the top 10 positions, with Jackson taking the title. “Obviously it’s good to win the title, but I would rather have done it racing with Steve,” Jackson concluded.