Daire battles with top drivers in European Clio Cup Series

THE second round of European Clio Cup Series took Tallaght’s Daire Flock to Dijon Race Circuit in France, with 44 cars on the grid coming from all over Europe to compete in the most competitive one make series in the world.

With very little track time on Friday due to various issues, Flock entered qualification for Saturday’s race with little track time.

The session was busy with lots of action with red flags cutting qualifying time down. Daire managed to qualify 15th 0.7 off pole on this ultra-competitive grid.

With a great start Daire worked himself up to seventh, the race interrupted with two safety cars, cutting racing time to a minimum.

On the re-start Daire had a close battle and was briefly in fifth position before dropping back to seventh.

Daire said: “it was a fantastic race with close battles throughout, the highlight was battling with the current European champion beating him to the line after being demoted to finish 7th and 3rd in my Junior class”.

Race 2 on Sunday with qualifying in the morning again, with tight battling, traffic and incidents. Daire grabbed 12th on the grid with seconds left in the session.

Daire got another great start off the lights again and maintained his position when the safety car was deployed during the race due to a major incident on the pit straight.

‘Which resulted in Daire taking avoiding action and putting him back down the field, he fought his way back up and finished 11th overall and 4th in the junior class.

Daire said after the weekend. “I’m extremely happy, as I battled with the top drivers in Europe in the Clio Cup Series.

‘I’m currently 10th in the overall championship and 3rd in the junior championship after  4 races.

‘My next race is at Circuit de Spa- Francorchamps on 30th May looking forward to racing on this iconic track, 2 weeks before the F1 team visit.

‘I’d like to thank my team for their tireless effort over the weekend and my continuing support from my sponsors., Gorilla Design, Rygor Autis, Glenhaze Distribution, Reactive Welding”.