Silverstone GP Support Race 11th July

           Another great result makes it three in a row!

The Silverstone GP meeting is the most prestigious in our calendar and although the four days between 'start' of qualifying and the race begins to drag, it does give a great opportunity for the drivers and teams to get to know each other better…..

Both cars were racing!

Qualifying on the Thursday was in the heat of the day and it was hot out there.  Rob had commitments in France at the historic race at Le Mans so he had to perform quickly!  This he did and even surprised himself with his time.  Some of the other leading cars seem to mysteriously go slower than they did in testing a week before but we managed to hold on to pole for the first session.

My office every three weeks!

Second qualifying was late on on Friday and the temperature had cooled so I suspected our time would be in danger.  I posted the fifth quickest time but was still a couple of seconds adrift of Rob's time.  I could see in the data where I was losing it but did not fancy trying any new techniques in the race …. call me a chicken if you want! We held on to pole but it was closer after William Hewland posted a great time in the sister car.

We also had our Porsche out with Charlie Cox and Jonathan Baker and they were quickly getting to grips with her, posting to 3^rd quickest Porsche time.

After our second pole.....

Rob in the meantime had unfortunately returned early from France once the Jag he was sharing with Peter Lloyd ran into problems early on.  This should have given us time to practice some pitstops…….

Final checks.......

Race day arrived at last and after a long wait as a result of Michael Schumacher's unfortunate crash, we rolled onto the grid.  My plan was to try and keep the gap to our sister car as small as possible which I did for a while still driving fairly conservatively as it was extremely slippery out on the track.

I was keeping it to about 8 seconds when a slower Porsche comprised my line through Becketts and onto the Hangar straight (NB - a typical driver's excuse!!).  This dropped me to 12 seconds but I was a long way clear of the 3^rd place Viper.

We had a reasonable pit stop (not as good as Brand's!) and after the other car stopped we had a deficit of 9 seconds to make up in twenty minutes.  Rob narrowed the group quite quickly to Thorkild and went round the outside at Priory (!) in the last ten minutes.

Another fantastic result for the team and the first time I have finished a GP support race! Thank you to the team and the BRDC for a great weekend.