Experienced single-seater campaigner Steele, who resides in Rochester, and category rookie De Graaff, from Weybridge in Surrey, both performed well in horrendously cold and wintry conditions during the day’s two qualifying periods and the whole Russell Racing team is now looking forward to Easter Monday’s races in buoyant mood.
Steele underlined his credentials as genuine front-runner in the battle for FR2000 Class honours by posting the fourth fastest time in round one qualifying this morning, a lap of 57.363 seconds his best. For round two, the 19-year-old will start 13th on the grid.
Team-mate De Graaff, meanwhile, is set to begin both of tomorrow’s encounters from 18th on the grid, the car racing debutant offering a glimpse of his undoubted potential in far from easy or predictable conditions.
With a wet track and falling snow providing a challenge to say the least during the first of the two sessions, Steele could actually have lapped even quicker but for traffic on the short 1.2-mile Indy Circuit configuration.
Expecting wet-weather car settings to continue to be beneficial for round two qualifying, the Russell Racing drivers were unfortunately unable to show their true pace in the second session when the track started to dry later on. Nonetheless, in race trim tomorrow, the team believes it will be able to score good points.
Speaking on today’s qualifying performance, Russell Racing’s Matt Russell said: “We’re really pleased with how today has gone. Seeing Aaron on the second row of the grid for the first race of the new season is great and he actually felt he could have been quicker had it not been for traffic.”
“It was unfortunate the way the second qualifying session turned out with the conditions but we’re confident Aaron will be able to battle his way through to a good points finish, he’s a quality racer.”
Russell continued: “Don did a really good job today on his debut. He was very consistent in his approach, he took it step-by-step, and outperformed drivers who have had much more time in a Formula Renault. Taking into consideration Don has had extremely limited testing prior to the start of the season, today has been really encouraging.”
Very much a ‘home’ event for Sunbury-on-Thames based Russell Racing and its two local drivers, Easter Monday’s pair of 20 lap races are eagerly anticipated. Round one is expected to begin at 10.55 tomorrow, 24th March, with round two following at 15.00.
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