Shane Kelly was crowned the 2006 Club F3 Champion at his home circuit of Thruxton on Sunday. Shane arrived at Thruxton with the upper hand over his only remaining rival - Jon Gray, but he knew that he couldn't relax for a second at the UK's fastest circuit.

Qualifying was held in a torrential downpour and after assessing the conditions during the first half of the session, Shane returned to the pitlane for some set-up changes in order to find some more speed from his car. With 10 minutes remaining, Shane returned to the circuit and found that the changes had improved the handling of his car, however he also found that the rain had intensified, meaning that he was unable to improve his time.

Shane would start the race from fourth place on the grid, crucially one place ahead of Jon Gray who would start fifth.

As the start time approached, the circuit was primarily dry, but intermittent rain showers threatened to change the nature of the circuit. Shane and his team arrived on the grid with dry tyres, but the final setup of the car's suspension and aerodynamics was not finalised by Shane's race engineer until the last possible moment!

Just how treacherous the conditions were became apparent even before the start as pole-sitter Gavin Wills spun as he exited the pit lane on his way to the grid!

Confident that he had the correct tyres and car setup for the conditions, Shane made a strong start to hold third place on the first lap (pole position man Wills had to start from the back after his spin). Conscious of his Championship position, Shane paced himself behind Daniel Tapinos for the opening laps. Despite being held up by the Greek driver, Shane didn't need to risk a passing manoeuvre. His patience paid off and Shane moved safely into second place as Tapinos spun off on the greasy surface.

Revelling in the conditions and now with a clear track to the race leader (Justin Sherwood), Shane began to build a gap to his main rival (Gray had moved into third place) and close the gap to the leader. As Shane closed up to Sherwood, Gray was unable to keep up the pace on the tricky circuit and Shane's lead over him increased to over 45 seconds.

Despite having to twice avoid a spinning Ken Finneran, who tripped up at the chicane on both occasions that Shane came to lap him, his cruise to the Chequered Flag and the Championship Title was trouble free. Second place on the road at Thruxton, with Jon Gray in fourth place gave Shane the first ever Club Formula 3 Championship Title by 12 points.

Shane's thoughts on the race and his Championship title:

"I had approach Thruxton differently to any other race this year because of the championship situation."

"The ideal situation was to qualify ahead of my closest contender for the title. However, the qualifying session was very wet! It would have been easy to have crashed whilst trying to get pole position - this could have meant it was game over before we even got the race! The session was a damage limitation exercise and in the end I qualified fourth with Gray in fifth."

"The long wait between qualifying and the race plus changing weather conditions made the decision on car setup and tyres hard for me and for my engineer (Ian). As we left the pitlane for the race the rain held off but clouds threatened, Ian decided to go for an intermediate car setup (somewhere between a full dry and a full wet setup)."

"I got a good start and the car setup really paid off because the track was very slippery. I moved up to second and I was able to close on the leader, but with only 10 minutes to go I had already done more than enough to win the championship. Crossing the line and seeing my team show me 'P1-2006' on my pit board was the best feeling I've had in the whole of my racing career."