Shahaan Engineer missed out on what would have been a well-deserved maiden top 10 result in the last round of the Protyre Formula Renault UK Finals Series at Rockingham on Saturday, 12th November – an unlucky spin on lap 13 whilst on slicks in treacherous greasy conditions for the rookie car racer, costing him ninth place in the toughest ever field assembled for the rebranded ‘winter series’.
Shahaan Engineer Formula Renault UK Finals
Just a few days removed from his impactful car racing debut during the opening event of the six race championship at Snetterton last weekend, where he qualified 8th from 29 cars, the 16-year-old continued his impressive progress at Rockingham’s challenging 1.94-mile International Super Sports Car Circuit.
Matching podium finishing pace in the second of the day’s outings, round six, the Shahaan lapped with a best time of 1m17.955 seconds; a great achievement in a category renowned as one of the key junior championships on the career ladder to Formula One.
Starting round six from 17th on the near capacity grid, following a tough fog-affected qualifying session in which he suffered a flat-spotted tyre, Shahaan made superb progress on the opening lap to climb into 11th place before then gaining two more positions into ninth.
After a short two-lap Safety Car period, racing resumed on the fifth tour where he did a great job at the re-start and looked on course for his best finish yet in Formula Renault. Coping well with two further Safety Car interludes, on laps seven and 11 respectively, the Fortec youngster once more did a fantastic job when racing resumed in each instance to maintain ninth.
Pushing hard to make even greater gains, Shahaan was unfortunately caught-out on a damp piece of track exiting the left-hander out of Pif Paf on lap 14 and the resulting spin pitched him across onto the infield and into retirement. Hugely disappointed to miss out on his first top 10 finish in only his sixth race in Formula Renault UK, Shahaan was nonetheless happy with his pace.
“I just pushed a bit too hard to catch the cars in front”, he commented, “I made a really good start, we made up a lot of positions and all of the re-starts went well after the Safety Cars. Ninth was a fantastic place to be in from 17th on the grid of 29 cars.
“I wanted a bit more than that as the pace was really good and I felt really comfortable with the car, the adrenaline rush was tremendous as I realised I had just a few laps with a top 10 in hand. I was confident of catching the three cars in front but I just caught the damp patch and spun. It’s a real shame but it’s still been a very strong and positive weekend.”
For the earlier fifth round, which was contested on a drying track after the fog which had affected the qualifying session had lifted, Shahaan started 17th on the grid and climbed into 14th prior to the emergence of the Safety Car on lap three. Battling hard in among half a dozen cars, he rose as high as 13th at one stage but in the end had to settle for 14th place.
The chief aim for Shahaan over the past two weekends has been to achieve maximum track time, learn about starts and racecraft and to keep the car on the track – in doing all of those and being the youngest driver in the series, he superbly achieved his goals.
