Protyre Formula Renault BARC Championship team Hillspeed enjoyed a superb outing at Croft Circuit in North Yorkshire over the weekend with Shropshire’s James Theodore taking his maiden victory and team-mate Alice Powell securing a pair of tremendous second place finishes.

Theodore was undoubtedly the dominant driver over the course of the third event of the season and he started as he meant to go on, scorching to a brace of pole position starts for rounds five and six of the campaign and doing so in sensational style.

Needing only four laps in which to take pole for the first race with a superb time of 1m 19.756 seconds (95.91mph) – an incredible eight 10ths of a second quicker than anyone – the Telford racer doubled-up for round six. Requiring just one flying lap, his time of 1m 20.637 seconds (94.87mph) was six 10ths of a second better than his nearest challenger.

In Sunday’s first race, Theodore was in control from the off and by the end of lap two he had a substantial 2.5 second cushion. Increasing his lead to almost six seconds by the end of lap nine, the Shropshire teenager’s advantage was eroded due to a short Safety Car period but at the re-start he pulled clear again to an eventual winning margin of 2.7 seconds. He also posted the fastest lap.

Powell, who visited the top step of the rostrum at Silverstone during the previous event, charged through from fifth on the grid – qualifying within two 10ths of a second of the front row for round five – to take a fantastic second place finish for her third podium of the year.

Moving into third on the opening tour, the Chipping Norton-based driver moved into second place on lap three and remained there to the chequered flag on lap 16 to follow home Theodore. In doing so, the team-mates helped make history for Hillspeed with the result marking the squad’s first ever one-two finish in Formula Renault.

“We’re all absolutely delighted with the team performance this weekend, especially in race one”, said Hillspeed principal Richard Ollerenshaw. “It’s nice to finally get a Hillspeed one-two in Formula Renault BARC, James and Alice performed very impressively.

James was outstanding in qualifying and looked super comfortable in the first race as did Alice, she was exceptional.”