Shane Kelly maintained his 100% winning record in The Enterprise Group 2006 Club F3 Championship with a hard fought victory at Donington Park on Saturday (17th June).
After problems in testing restricted his track time and with oil on the circuit and a puncture during qualifying, Shane took the start from 7th on the grid.
A storming start saw Shane into 2nd at the first corner and taking advantage of his rivals hesitance on their cold tyres, Shane took the lead before the end of the lap, a hard battle was to follow between Shane, Keith Baldwin and Gavin Wills.

Shane completed 16 laps during the qualifying session; the first five of these were used to assess the car setup whilst scrubbing in the tyres he would use in the race. Shane returned to the circuit with just under 15 minutes of the session remaining. After four more laps Shane set what would be his best time of 1:08.338, just as the current pole sitter Gary Marsh suffered a monumental engine failure on the Craner Curves, dropping oil on the racing line as he tried to pull off the circuit. Running off line to avoid the oil Shane, picked up a rear puncture that brought his session to an end.

Shane's thoughts on qualifying: "The gap to pole looks quite large but this is a bit artificial as the oil on the circuit stopped any faster times before the circuit was at its quickest. The times are really close between everyone else and I am only ½ a second off the front row, I am positive that I can have a good race despite starting 7th. We made the best of our situation after losing a lot of time in testing. We are going to have to use brand new rear tyres in the race, which isn't as good as it sounds because they need some easy laps to scrub them in properly. I'm expecting to have a problem with rear grip in the middle of the race but I'll deal with that when it comes!"

Heading for the grid with new rear tyres, a good start was crucial to make up as many places as possible in the early laps. Gary Marsh was delayed as a result of his engine failure in qualifying and his pole position spot was vacant as he started from the pit lane. A perfect get away from the inside of row four saw Shane up to second place behind Keith Baldwin as the field headed into Redgate for the first time. Half way around the first lap Shane made the most of his opportunity as Baldwin hesitated on cold tyres, and he took the lead around the outside of Starkey's to lead as the field crossed the line at the end of lap 1. Shane began to build a gap and by lap three he was a second clear of Gavin Wills who had also passed Baldwin on lap 1. A back marker spinning at Redgate and Ken Finneran spinning at McLeans meant two yellow flag zones on lap 4, Wills took the chance to close the gap and he overtook Shane for the lead at the Chicane at the end of the lap.
"I made sure that I backed off for the yellow flags, as the leader you are watched closely and can be penalised if you don't reduce your pace past the incidents. The others are supposed to back off too but Gavin managed to close right up to me as we passed the two yellow flags, he got a run on me down the back straight and made a pass at the chicane. The pass itself was fair but he wouldn't have got past me if he hadn't pushed his luck on the yellows! This was also the point when the tyres started to go off and I had to work hard to stay in touch with the leader."

Keith Baldwin passed Shane for 2nd place on lap 10 while he struggled as his tyres went off. Jon Gray also began to press hard and momentarily relieved Shane of 3rd place at the Chicane on lap 11, only for Shane to immediately retake the place at Redgate. With the tyres recovering from their drop off in performance, Shane began to close on the two leaders. On lap 15 he was promoted to 2nd place when Gavin Wills retired with mechanical problems. The gap to Baldwin peaked at just over 6 seconds but Shane closed this down to just 4 by lap 18, despite having to negotiate some stubborn back markers! The pressure paid off when Baldwin tripped over a back marker at the Chicane and spun. Shane was through to retake the lead with 3 laps to go. Baldwin's spin left him in 2nd but with a corner marker blocking his radiator he had to pit for it to be removed. This left Shane with the 5 second lead he had built over Jon Gray and he took the chequered flag to secure his fourth win in a row and his first at Donington since his double win in 2001.

"I always drive every lap of a race as if it was a qualifying lap, 100% every lap! When you are fighting for positions you have to do this in order to take advantage of anything that may happen to those in front. It's true that the gap to Keith and Gavin was getting bigger during the middle part of the race and I had to work hard to look after the tyres and keep on the pace, but when the tyres started to come back up to speed I was able to close the gap. Gavin had his problem and I was putting pressure on Keith, he could see that I was closing him down and he made a mistake under pressure. If I had backed off and settled for 2nd he might not have made that mistake. We earned this win as a team today, the guys did well to recover after our problems in testing and I owed it to them and everyone who supports me to put maximum effort into the race, it paid off and now we are in a very strong position in the championship."