Barnicoat gets the title in a cancelled race

 Ben Barnicoat has won the championship of the Formula Renault 2.0 NEC after today’s race was canceled due to fog. Louis Delétraz could not fight to earn the win.

The race that decided the championship began early, in Nürburgring covered by fog and a threat of fairly high rainfall, which has caused the delay of the activity; other than that the track was quite wet due to rain tonight. Ben Barnicoat (Fortec Motorsports) and Louis Delétraz (Josef Kaufmann Racing) were the men who were fighting for the championship. The Fortec who led by 13 points had everything ahead, despite starting from the fifteenth place. Instead the Josef Kaufmann Racing had the following options: win the race and Barnicoat finishing seventh, finishing second and Barnicoat fourteenth, finishing third and Barnicoat finishing fourth or finishing eighteenth and Barnicoat not score.

But after 40 minutes late, the organization has decided to cancel the race and awarded the championship to Ben Barnicoat.

QUOTES

1. Ben Barnicoat (Fortec Motorsports):

“I had an amazing year after a difficult start at Monza. I learned a lot this year as this was my first year to race in cars. But I started putting things together and moved up in the field. Having many podium finishes made my season sort of consistent which helped me. The mechanical error in Assen did cost me a lot of points. But we did not give up and with the win in Most it set me up to be up here. It has been an amazing rookie year and I have to give a massive special thanks to the Racing Steps Foundation, without whose help I would not have been able to be here and of course the team which looked after me so well.”

2. Louis Déletraz (Josef Kaufmann Racing):

“It was a good season. We won the team championship and I am very happy with my second place. I think I could have won the drivers championship but I will never know for sure with this cancelled race. I would have really liked to have raced this race as this was my last chance to fight for the top. This season I have learned a lot from my mistakes and look forward to next year. Many thanks to the team and all their hard work.”

3. Seb Morris (Fortec Motorsports):

“I had a very up and down season. It started ok but then I hit a rough patsch. At Hockenheim we lost nearly 60 points and had another disaster at Spa. But in general I scored the strongest points since Assen. I went from 9th to 3rd after Assen. Being third in the championship hopefully opens doors to me. I was lucky to have overtaken Schothorst yesterday as otherwise he would have been 3rd. I hope I have learned from my mistakes so not to repeat them. I want to thank the team for having done such a great job.”

Teammanager Lars Kaufmann (Josef Kaufmann Racing):

“We won five races in total and three of my four drivers won races, so we had a very good season with second place for Déletraz, fifth for Malja and ninth for Tveter. Congratulations to Ben for winning the championship. Thank you to the organisation of the FR2.0 NEC and to my team for all the hard work they did.”

Drivers Championship Final Results: