DOWNTON'S Ollie Pidgley rounded off the first half of the ultra-competitive MSA Formula season with three more strong race finishes at Croft this weekend.

The teenager, in his debut year as a single-seater racer representing Richardson Racing squad, equalled his previous season-best of 14th position in race one of the weekend, round 13, on Saturday and went on to claim 18th and 16th place results in the event’s remaining contests.

“We did have some issues with the set-up to begin with but I think we resolved them as the weekend wore on – race three was much better in terms of catching and overtaking people”, said the 17-year-old MSA Academy racer, “There’s definitely more room for improvement and we have a month off now, so hopefully we’ll get some testing in which should pay dividends.”

“We had several issues in qualifying which all made the car pretty lively”, explained Ollie, “We made some changes for the first race, though, and they made a big difference – especially early on. I still did struggle with the rear tyres, they seemed to go off quite early, but it was an improvement.”

There is now a lengthy six week summer break for the MSA Formula championship with the second half of the season set to commence on 8th/9th August at Snetterton 300 Circuit in Norfolk.