In RaceDepartment’s first league of 2008 Englishman Roy Carless beats the competition with a consistent performance through the season and a clear win at Dubai. His team, Team FO SE, grabs the team championship with two season wins.
Roy Carless leading the field during the fifth race at Dubai National.
During all of the season it had been unclear who would walk away with the championship title. The six races all had different winners and after each race the championship standings had looked totally different than before the race. Success in this championship season thus became a matter of consistency.
After four races Carless had not yet seen the podium in a race, but had sat on it in the championship standings for a while. He had managed to stick to the top four while others had dropped in and out. The fifth round was his. At Dubai he grabbed the win and established a solid 14-points lead over the number two, Tom Ilsbroux and a 24-points lead over the number three, Ramon van Rijn. With just one race to go anything could still happen, though a solid performance like in any of the five previous races would almost certainly hand him the championship. And so it happened. Carless finished fifth in the final round at Valencia and claimed the championship. Christopher Aponte won the race a moved from fourth to second place in the standings, just before Van Rijn who maintained his third position with a another podium finish.
The team championship ended as a clean sweep for the Flat Out Club, who had their teams on the first three positions, with Carless’ and Luis Nieto’s SE team on the top spot. Both guys had won a race, but the majority of the points came from Carless. Nieto finished in only two races, but scored a podium in both. This was just enough to make a 14-points gap with the SS team.
Congratulations to Roy Carless and Team FO SE for their formidable performance in this league.
Click for the 2008 season Gillet Vertigo Cup results