Niall Murray continued his podium run at Mondello Park last weekend in the final weekend of the 2013 Irish Formula Ford Championship. The young Dubliner who made a sensational debut in Formula Ford this season showed his class and excellence throughout the season by adapting his driving style and was rarely off the podium.
Saturday morning’s first of the weekends two qualifying sessions proved a little difficult for Niall as he couldn’t get a comfortable balance with his Murray Motorsport car despite being one of the fastest in both Wednesday and Friday’s pre-event tests. Despite this, Murray qualified his car in fourth for the afternoons race, a mere two tenths off pole man Stephen Daly.
Saturday afternoon’s dry race allowed Niall to get a superb start off the line. At the first corner Murray got along side rival Sean Doyle and completed the move for third at the following Adelaide Insurance corner. For the early part of the race, Niall was right with the lead pairing of Ivor McCullough and Stephen Daly. However, as the race progressed, Murray felt his tyres starting to lose their edge and by the end of the race had to settle for third ahead of Jonny McMullan.
Sunday morning’s wet qualifying allowed Murray to take advantage of the wet weather experience he had gained during midweek testing, putting his CL Brakes supported car third on the grid for the race. By the time the afternoon’s race approached, Mondello Park’s International circuit had fully dried out. Niall’s good start off the line was hindered by a slow get away from pole sitter Kevin O’Hara. By the end of the opening lap Murray had now disposed of O’Hara and focused on catching the leading pair of Jonny McMullan and Sean Doyle. By the end of lap three, Niall caught right onto the back of McMullan, setting the fastest lap of the race in the process. Close battles for the lead are becoming the norm as Formula Ford makes its resurgence in Ireland and this was certainly no different. Unfortunately for Murray, he started to lose that crucial edge on his tyres once again approaching the final stages of the race and as he crossed the finish line he had done enough to secure his second podium finish of the weekend in third place.
Murray’s brace of podium finishes allowed him to secure third overall in both, the 2013 Irish and Northern Irish Formula Ford Championships, a mere fourteen points behind champion Ivor McCullough in the Irish Championship. A remarkable achievement for the single seater debutant.
Speaking after the weekend, Murray reflected on his weekend and season as a whole, “very happy with the results we have achieved as a team, especially as it was our first ever season running a single seater! Massive thanks to everyone who gave us a hand over the season, getting us out of a hole on more than one occasion! Noel Dunne, Cliff Dempsey, Keith Dempsey, Bernard Dolan, Morgan Dempsey and so many more, you all know who you are! An even bigger thanks to Paul, Eoin and especially my dad Joe at Murray Motorsport for all the hard work over the season spending hours on the car trying to get it perfect for me. Hopefully next year we can have some further strong results from the first round onwards and fight for the top honours. Next, I’m really looking forward to competing in the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch and the Walter Hayes Trophy at Silverstone in the coming weeks. These are two of the most hotly contested FF1600 races in the world! Finally a huge word of thanks to my sponsors over the season, Murray Motorsport, SuperB Lithium Batteries, CL Brakes, Schroth and P1 : Digital.”
