COLIN LE MAITRE exceeded his own expectations on his first local hillclimb in his new Autocare Gould Judd. His fastest time of the day in his 4,000cc machine came in the second run on Le Val des Terres when he clocked 31.65sec.

It was not until the final run of the day that the time was bettered by Neil Ridley in his EPM Anderson kart.

Only 0.02sec. separated the two drivers.

‘I did not expect to go quite so quick, quite so soon,’ said Le Maitre.

‘I said to my wife I wanted to do a 34 [seconds time], then a 33 and a 32 and perhaps a 31, but my first time was a 32 so I was quite surprised.

‘The start and the top were good. It was a bit cold in the shade, we could have done with a bit more heat on the road, but I hit 103 on the top straight and that was as quick as the National [Hillclimb championship] drivers last year.’

Le Maitre was consistent with his times all day with less than 0.5sec. separating his five runs as he took first place in the Racing Cars 2,001cc and over class.

His next event will be at Prescott in Gloucestershire, one of the British Hillclimb Championship rounds, on 1 and 2 May. He may compete in Guernsey the following day also.

‘The car is showing its potential, I will just try and build on it now,’ Le Maitre said.

‘I have got to grips with it pretty quickly and now I have just got to tweak a few things. It was a very pleasing start.’

It was an encouraging opening to the season overall with some impressive times being recorded.

Ridley’s 31.63sec. was his third run under 32sec. for the day and he was not far off the kart record held by Nigel Davis which was set in the warmer month of July last year.

Ridley won his class by a margin of almost two seconds.

The one record to fall on Monday was in the Production Saloons up to 1,600cc as Shane Le Poidevin clocked 43.01sec. to beat Mark Vaughan’s mark of 43.39, which was set over 10 years ago.