What a weekend!
From the very 1st moment getting to the circuit on Friday morning, the mood was relaxed but focused on making amends for the previous round at Donington, with the car fixed quite incredibly by my dad in the 3 weeks gap between rounds, everything was set to be a good weekend.
Friday testing was dry and sunny all day, and right from the 1st session, despite spending most of the session bedding things in, I was somehow still on the pace of the others around me, which continued all the way through to the final session of the day.
After the forecast had been for dry sunny weather all weekend, it was a bit of a shock to be driving in 1st thing in the morning with it raining! A classic Silverstone micro-climate where the weather forecast never really seems to work. Fortunately we were not the 1st out on circuit and the rain soon cleared leaving us drivers in group 1 with a drying circuit.
Initially the grip levels were pretty low, with us starting the session about 5 seconds off the pace of Fridays running, but the track was getting quicker and quicker every lap, it was very clear that whoever was last to set a lap time in qualifying stood the best chance of putting it on pole in group.
Half way through the session I was sitting in P4 in group with my team mate Joe sitting 2nd as the track was slowly improving, and then a red flag was thrown due to someone falling foul of the lack of grip off line and getting beached in the gravel at Becketts (an easy mistake to make in the conditions)
As soon as the session restarted it became apparent that the grip level had significantly improved, and entering the final lap of the session, I took pole position, only to encounter an extremely slow moving car at the apex of Becketts ruining any chance of setting an even quicker final lap, but fortunately only dropping to 2nd as Matt Luff managed to set a quicker time and avoid the traffic.
The qualifying result meant I could relax for the rest of Saturday and watch groups B and C race, with team-mate Joe Wiggin driving through from 5th to take a commanding on track victory.
Starting 3rd for both races was a great position to really make the most of the opportunity to get back into the podium positions for the 1st time since Snetterton last year! My 1st race looked very promising to deliver on this with a solid start, losing 1 position to Will Blackwell-Chambers on the inside of turn 1 which seemed pretty inevitable, down the Wellington straight and into Brooklands I had already re-gained the position and then the red flags came out immediately and we re-formed to the grid. Once there we quickly learned that one of our fellow competitors Ed Worthington had been part of a huge crash, sending his 777 car rolling over 3 times! Thankfully no one was hurt in the accident but it was a reminder as to how important the safety equipment is in these fantastic race cars we all love.
After a substantial wait while the Marshall's did an incredible job to clear the circuit of the 3 stricken cars, the race got back underway with a very similar launch and run into turn 1.
However at Becketts the race started to unravel immediately with several cars finding a sever lack of grip on the outside line, myself included, dropping me down the order to 7th, which after a difficult battle throughout the race I managed to maintain, as opportunities were few and far between to improve on the position in such a tight pack.
The final race of the weekend again provided a tricky start from the outside row dropping down to 4th at Copse and then team mate Joe Wiggin going through at Becketts leaving me in 5th going down the Wellington straight, however, as Matt Luff experimented with his rallying skills on the exit of Luffield, I was promoted back to 4th by the end of lap 1.
Immediately through Copse on Lap 2, Mike Comber and Joe Wiggin got through to 1st and 2nd leaving me side by side with Seb Fisher for 3rd, after hanging on around the outside of Brooklands I had the inside for Luffield and was back into the podium positions.
The battle between Joe and Mike was getting closer and closer and as Joe went to the outside of Copse, I snook up the inside leaving us side by side going into Becketts and catching Mike with a strong tow, and I somehow managed to sneak up the inside and within 2 corners, went from 3rd to leading the race (I could feel the nose bleed coming along being that high up!) Pretty much as soon as I took the lead the safety car boards and flags came out... my 1st ever safety car restart in the lead loomed.
After maintaining the lead after the restart, it became a 2 horse race for the lead with 2 laps to go and with 2 corners to go and regrettably some fairly soft defending on my side, Mike Comber too the lead and won the drag to the line by 0.084 seconds, with Joe a further 0.1 behind having battled back through after being overtaken before the restart.
After the race was very mixed emotions, so close to the 1st win but still so happy with a great results and credit to Mike, Joe and Seb for a race with 0 contact between us while battling for the lead, what racing should all be about!
Massive thank you to the Tucker Motorsport family for all their amazing support over the weekend, especially after the difficulties of Donington, we all rallied together and the car was on rails all weekend!
Also thank you to Airbourne Graphics and Signs and EPTA projects on their continued support throughout the season!
We move onto Brands Hatch next for the final round of the BRSCC season sponsored by WASPP on 24th/25th October! See you then ;)
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