Race Report from Donington

It was fabulous to finally have some of my sponsors attend to watch the racing, take in the thrill of being at the track and enjoy the hospitality of the day.

Thursday Test

The test day on Thursday did not start off to well, Moh went out to do the 1st session and unfortunately about 10minutes in to the session he had an accident and damaged all the front of the car smashing the radiator front end etc. We then missed the next session whilst the team carried out the repairs. After lunch we was able to resume our testing but with numerous red flags during the sessions it was difficult to get some good runs in. We got a good set up in the end and looked forward to racing on Saturday.

Saturday Qualifying

It was my turn to qualify on the Saturday and again it was a bit of a scrappy session, I just started my first quick lap and a Porsche went off at Redgate corner into the gravel causing a red flag. With only 7 minutes of the qualifying session left I went out again and managed to get one clear flying lap in putting me P3 for the start of the sprint race.

Saturday Sprint Race

I got off to a great start in the sprint race and managed to hold P3 for a few laps and then got on the back of the Porsche in our class and really started to put the pressure on him forcing him to make mistakes and it paid off going into Redgate where he out braked himself and ran a bit wide giving me the opportunity to get up on the inside of him going down through Craner Curves and I managed to go around the outside and grab P2 as we went into the Old Hairpin. Once I had got past him I managed to pull away a created a 4.8second gap on him when on the last lap going down through Craner Curves I had a hose burst, the engine lost all power and the car shut all the systems down so I had no clutch or brakes etc forcing me to retire on track. I was so gutted not only for myself but for the team also as it would have given us some solid championship points.

Saturday Endurance

The team worked miracles to get the car ready for us to race and it was Moh to start for us, I had managed to do the 2nd quickest time in class in  the sprint race which meant Moh would be starting P2 in class. 

Moh got off to a great start and was holding position well when he had a coming together with another car causing him to have to retire the car and that was the end f our endurance race unfortunately.

Sunday Qualifying

Once again the team worked none stop and only finished rebuilding the car at midnight on Saturday so a massive thank you to them.

It was Moh’s turn to qualify and again it was quite a busy affair but he managed to qualify P8 for the sprint race.

Sunday Sprint Race

It was me out to do the first stint and I got a really  fantastic start,  I was able to settle in to a good pace and had a great battle with the Porsche that was lying in P2 forcing my way past going in to the Melbourne Loop and taking that position it was now time to get my head down and chase the orange McLaren in P1. I was able to put some blistering laps in and got right on the back of him when the pit window opened, we both came in at the same time and but they had a success penalty from Saturdays race so when Moh went out we had gained the lead. Moh was pushing hard but with a couple of laps to go the Porsche GT4 car in our class got the better of him so we came home in P2.

A great result for us and the team after what had been the most difficult of weekends but everyone kept positive and we got the result at the end of the day.

Our next and last round in the championship is at Snetterton on 2nd and 3rd October.

With thanks to Jakob Ebrey for the imagery.