Final results of Round 8 of the ELF Renault Clio Cup have Pead in 8th place, but that does not tell the story of the twice-restarted race at Snetterton today.

Renault Aftersales Racing driver, Ed Pead, completed the eighth round of the 2007 ELF Renault Clio Cup this afternoon with maintaining his position in the top five of this competitive championship.

Pead, carrying Ixell, Ixtar, Rapide Bodycare, RAMB, Renaultp@rts, Motrio and Renault Trade Partner logos on his car, was much happier with today's Round 8 grid position than the starting place of yesterday's race and was confident of continuing his recent performance with another impressive charge through the field to catch up to the front runners.

Pead said, "A good result is definitely in the cards and with a bit of luck, anything is possible in today's race". He added, "Ultimately, my goal is to improve my current 4th place in the standings and get back into the top three of the championship come the end of the Brands Hatch weekend next month. We can then sit down and discuss what we do from then on for the remaining two rounds at Donington and Thruxton".

As the lights turned to green in front of a huge crowd of spectators for the second day of this double-header weekend, three cars collided on the start line, another rolled at the first corner and several others made contact moving onto the straight leaving the organizers with no option but to show the red light for the second time this weekend due to the chaos around the circuit.

At the restart Pead had an eventful lap, which culminated with him having to take avoiding action at the Esses to avoid contact with the safety wall. Due to this he found himself in the leading pack and sensibly let them past, therefore avoiding a penalty, but he was able to take several positions on the lap and found himself up to 7th place.

However this eventful race soon had the safety car out once again as parts of the track needed to be rebuilt from other contacts on lap three. Once the race was restarted for a second time it became a 16-lap race again due to the safety car laps. Pead was in a gaggle of top ten cars and coming onto the pit straight, went slightly wide and took to the grass and dropped down to 9th.

For most of the race Pead was trying to close a four second gap to the leading bunch and with only two laps to go was once again battling to gain another place.

On the penultimate lap he took back 8th position, but time ran out for the Renault Aftersales driver's charge, as the race came to an end.

With the one-make championship set to move back to Brands Hatch in Kent in three weeks time, Pead is already focused on improving his series position when he comes to Brands.

Pead commented, "I have plenty of experience of the final three tracks and I aim to come away from all of them with the best possible results in order to significantly improve my championship position."

RESULTS

Results - Round 8, 2007 ELF Renault Clio Cup Snetterton Circuit (29/07/07)

1. Robert Lawson (JHR Development)    16 laps @ 22m 09.027s
2. Michael Doyle (Robertshaw Racing)   +0.264s
3. Martin Byford  (Z Speed Racing)   +0.774s
4. Andrew Herron  (JHR Developments)   +0.997s
5. Andrew Jordan (Team Eurotech)   +2.482s
6. Jim Edwards Jnr (Kangaroo Int/SMC Renault) +6.625s
7. Ben Widrow (Total Control Racing)  +9.003s
8. Ed Pead   (Renault Aftersales Racing) +9.369s
9. Alex MacDowall (Total Control Racing)  +10.318s
10. Niki Lanik  (Youth for Human Rights)  +14.610s

2007 Desktop photo is now available for free download. Visit the Multimedia section to get your own copy.

Be sure to check out the other photos from this years' meetings in the Photo Gallery.