Wednesday July 15, 2015 at 3:39pm
The 4th round of this year’s 6-round British F2 Sidecar Championship heads to Anglesey on the 25th and 26th July. So far, the honours have gone the way of Holden and Founds. That is to say the John Holden and Dan Sayle pairing but the ‘Founds’ part not only applies to the Alan Founds/Tom Peters team but also Pete Founds, who in the last round had Ashley Hawes in the chair. Holden won four of the first five races but each time was followed to the line by Founds/Peters, the latter pair reversing the places in race one at Silverstone. In the second race at Castle Combe, both the rival pairs had an excursion off track which led to Holden finishing third with surprise, surprise Founds one place behind in fourth. This gave Alan’s elder brother, Pete the opportunity to take his first championship victory, ably assisted by 2012 world championship winning passenger Ashley Hawes. All these shenanigans result in Holden leading the championship on 123.5 points from Alan Founds on 108 and Pete founds third on 83.5 (the half points were awarded in the shortened season opener at Oulton Park.
Ian and Carl Bell lie fourth on 62.5 but they cannot be ruled out – they won here in their title-winning season of 2012, finished on the podium in both races in the last meeting at Castle Combe, and come here following a double podium also at the Southern 100 road races. Sean Reeves and Mark Wilkes lie fifth on 53.5, just four points clear of sixth-placed Steve and Mattie Ramsden.
Within the championship, there is a competition for the slightly less-experienced teams, namely the F2 Cup. There have been years when the winner of this title has only just made the top ten of the main British Championship, but the leading trio at the half-way stage this season have already been mentioned, Pete Founds leading on 121 Cup points followed by the Ramsdens on 96.5 and Reeves/Wilkes on 91.5. And while listing Mark Wilkes, we must mention his outstanding performance at the Southern 100 a fortnight back. He chaired world champion Tim Reeves to a double victory in his first ride with Tim and it was his first-ever road race!
Every race so far this year has seen close, exciting battles throughout the field and the excellent, but testing Anglesey is the perfect venue for more of the same. Enjoy the spectacle!