Another frustrating race weekend for Zelos dashes hopes of championship title

Silverstone proved to be yet another frustrating race weekend for Dan Zelos as a puncture ultimately took him out of the race, dashing any hopes of holding onto the championship title.

From the outset, luck was not on Zelos’ side. After a disappointing start in free practice due to engine issues, Zelos began 13th on the grid for race one. Things started off positively with an early push to 7th in the opening lap, gaining on Jack Mitchell before latching onto the tail of Lewis Brown in the closing stages.

However, things soon spiralled in race two, as Zelos spent the majority of it competing in a five-car scrap for a podium place. Despite taking 6th and proceeding to close in on Copse at the beginning of lap eight, Zelos’ engine issues returned, ultimately restricting him to another 7th place finish.

Coming back fighting in race three, Zelos took advantage of a drop-down from Alex Denning to rise to fifth, but this was short-lived as he lost out twice on the Wellington Straight, the latter of which saw him skate across the grass after experiencing a puncture, forcing him out of the race.

Zelos said:

“We were plagued by problems, unfortunately, from start to finish. I felt really positive going to Silverstone. I’ve always been fast there and have scored some good results, but straightaway on Friday morning, we knew the car wasn’t where we needed it to be and that we were in for a tough day at the office.

“We kept tinkering with the MINI all weekend to try to extract a little bit more out of it and we went into Sunday hoping for a change of luck, but race two was similarly a struggle. We were quick through the corners, but we couldn’t keep the momentum flowing. If we’d started higher up the grid, we could probably have just about held our own and defended our position, but when you’re lower down, you really need that extra pace to battle through the pack – whereas I was only able to pick up places when other drivers made mistakes or fell away.

“Overall, it was yet another weekend of ‘what ifs’ – a bit of a theme in 2022 – but there’s still one event to go at Brands Hatch GP, where I obviously have good memories from winning the title last season. This year’s title has now mathematically gone due to all our difficulties, but hopefully we can still finish on a high…”

Catch the final weekend of racing at Brands Hatch on 7th-9th October and check out Dan’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages for the latest updates.