Elite Motorsport’s Alisha Palmowski somehow salvaged a ninth place finish in the second race of the weekend at Donington Park this morning, despite contending with deranged rear suspension after a first lap incident.
On the run to turn one, teammate Finn Harrison and Arden’s Leon Wilson collided, sending the Arden car into the path of Palmowski’s right rear wheel. The Elite’s suspension was bent dramatically as a result, leaving the British driver to contest the rest of the race with a car that was crabbing heavily.
Visibly dealing with opposite lock through most corners and having to apply steering down the straights, she still claimed a top-10 result.
“Another unfortunate race for me, it’s really not been my weekend so far, all the bad luck is coming at once I think!” she said afterwards.
“On lap one I had a decent launch off the line, there was a few others that had a better launch and we were three wide. I was pretty much to the left hand side of the circuit on the racing line towards turn one but then I felt a huge knock on my right rear tyre. I nearly lost the car and was lucky to keep it in a straight line.
“As a result of that I had a huge amount of damage and the car was crabbing throughout the whole race and I was having to drive with a lot of left hand lock on. So it was very difficult and I was losing two seconds a lap to the front guys, so we struggled a lot for pace and I did think about bringing the car in as I didn’t want to damage the car any more. But I realised that I wasn’t in last place so I thought we could salvage some points, so I got my head down and did the best job I could.”
Having missed out on points in race one after finishing four laps down, this was the latest dose of bad luck for the Oulton Park winner, but she was grateful to simply finish the race.
“I’m not too sure how I didn’t have a huge crash down the Craner Curves to be honest, it was very sketchy on every lap and was holding my breath a little bit! I’ve not no words, a bit speechless about our luck this weekend but fingers crossed for the reverse grid this afternoon.”
