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21st May 2006

Race 1

Heavy rainfall just before the race meant that the field had to fit treaded wet weather tyres and it was pole sitter Jon Barnes who took full advantage of his position to take the lead at the race start. But his lead lasted no more than five corners, as Icelandic Viktor Jensen made his bid for the lead stick at Hawthorns.

After that, Jensen kept himself a safe distance ahead of Barnes until the red flags curtailed the race after nine laps because of several cars littering the circuit's various gravel traps.

"Jon kept me honest, that's for sure," said Jensen. "I started the move to pass him at Surtees and just boosted past him on the way to Hawthorns. As soon as we caught backmarkers, he caught me up and I was just thinking 'I can't throw this away now,' so I just put my head down and kept pushing. It's certainly given me plenty of confidence for race two."

Barnes ran a comfortable race in second, collecting a superb podium finish on his FPA debut.

Top Six Results:

Race 2

In the second race the start was delayed due to the heavy rain. Like race one, the second 20-minute outing was run in tricky weather conditions, with rivers running across parts of the track after so much rainfall.

Icelandic driver Viktor Jensen nailed the start and led away, and then had a clean restart after a safety car period, fending off the pressure from Jon Barnes for his second win of the day.

Barnes's second podium finish capped a remarkable debut weekend in FPA, with a pair of second place finishes. "The important thing was that if I couldn't beat Viktor this time, I wanted to get as close to him as possible and put him under some pressure," said Barnes, who had a crack at overtaking Jensen at the restart but did not get quite close enough. "I made some changes to the car, which really worked, including increasing tyre pressures and putting a really stiff rear end on the car. But at the restart I ran wide at Graham Hill Bend and that allowed Viktor to move away."

“It's been a superb weekends racing and I am very pleased with my results,” said Barnes, “Two 2nd place finishes puts me second in the championship. I am relishing the new challenge. Mastering the different driving style of the ‘slicks and wings' car and learning to set the car up to get the best out of it is very exciting.”

"The next race is at the legendary Spa Francorchamps on 2-4 th June. This is a circuit which I love and I have won a quite a few races there so really hope to raise enough sponsorship to be able to race that weekend."

Top Six Results:

ENDS