le mans series - donington park.

Le Mans Series rookie, Stuart Moseley, outshone the experts again on his return visit to the sports car endurance championship today, when he started from second on the grid for his home round at Donington Park.

The 28-year-old, who held the race lead on his LMS debut at the Nurburgring, Germany last month, showed his outstanding performance was no fluke when he held the entire field at bay for most of Saturday's qualifying session at the Leicestershire circuit. It took Moseley's former instructor, Tommy Erdos, to narrowly edge the Loughborough driver off pole position by just fractions of a second but the team was happy with second place on the LMP2 grid in only its second outing in the prestigious championship.

This triumph, however, was to be the highlight of the weekend as Moseley's Donington jinx took hold during today's racing. After a turbulent start, which saw Moseley lose and then regain several places with some spectacular driving, the SR9's temperature gauge started to rise, forcing the team to pit. Rejoining, 11 laps down and ninth in class, Moseley drove heroically to hand the car over to co-driver Tim Greaves in 6th place after a two-and-a-half-hour driving stint. Greaves carried on the battle and at one point was up to fifth in class before the car had to retire following a trip into the gravel whilst challenging for fourth place.

In a cruel twist, the car which finished fourth was the same which had been a lap down on Greaves at the point when he retired, convincing Moseley the team could have finished on the podium had fate dealt a different hand."This is my bogey circuit" said Moseley, who drives for Bruichladdich Radical."It's so frustrating because I really like Donington and we were quick here all weekend. I came so close to getting pole and that was definitely the best part of the weekend for me. To be challenging the best drivers on the grid in only our second race in the championship is fantastic. You can't expect any more. We're a new team working hard to catch up with the old hands, but it's still so frustrating not to get the car to the finish."

The team will now be working on the car's traction control before the next round at Jarama, Spain, on September 24th. "The track is similar to Donington Park in that it's fast and twisty," said Moseley. "The main difference is that Jarama is a lot more bumpy so it will be interesting to see how the car works."

"We've shown we can be up there with the best of them and we're learning at an incredible pace. It won't be long before we're not only challenging for pole, but for the race win as well."

Lucy Peacock.