TRIPLE PODIUM AT BRANDS HATCH

Two weeks on from a great opening weekend of the championship at Thruxton, it was time to head to Brands Hatch for rounds 3, 4, & 5 of the season. Having won on my last visit to Brands in 2019, I was raring to go for the GT5 races!

Once again testing on the Friday was wet, so we went into a dry weekend’s racing with very little experience in the GT5 at Brands Hatch in the dry. Nonetheless, qualifying went reasonably well and I was sitting in P1 in class for the majority of the session until I was pipped on the very last lap! That meant I started P2 for race one and only P4 for race two as I struggled with traffic in qualifying preventing me from posting a competitive second time.

My start too race one from the inside of the grid was brilliant, and I tried to squeeze up the inside of the two Pro class cars in front of me. Unfortunately I was pushed onto the grass towards the pitwall and therefore had to back out of the move, losing a number of places to drop to fifth in class. I managed to take back one place before a long safety car period began at the end of lap one.

Having been hit on lap one, I noticed a problem with the clutch during the safety car, which meant for the remainder of the race I was struggling with power out of the corners. Nevertheless, I passed the car ahead to take third in class at the flag.

With the clutch fixed for race two I was determined to progress from my P4 starting position and that’s exactly what I did. I made my way up to P2 by the end of the first lap and began putting the pressure on the leader of the class. After a couple of laps I passed the leader around the outside of Paddock Hill bend and proceeded to set the fastest lap of the race in an effort to make a gap to second. 

Having managed the lead onto the last lap, I found myself facing two cars which had spun across the track and completely blocked the road. I had to take evasive action over the grass, and briefly lost the lead on the way out to the GP loop. But I wasn’t going to give it up easily and regained the lead down the inside of Hawthorn to take my second class win of the season!

The starting order for the final race of the weekend was based on finishing positions from race two, so I started the race in class pole. I got a poor jump off the line and dropped down to third in class, but immediately set about trying to regain the lead. At the end of the first lap I was challenging hard with the two cars ahead of me when one had a big slide out of the last corner right in front of me. As I was avoiding him I lost momentum and while I passed the car in front, I lost a position at the same time, so remained in third. 

Soon after, the safety car came out as a result of a big crash for my teammate when it began to rain heavily at the back end of the circuit. The remainder of the race was held under the safety car with the exception of the last lap, but I was unable to make up any more places.

Overall a positive weekend with a win and two thirds in class, which sees me extend my championship lead and maintain a 100% podium record for the season! Now we have a long 5 week wait until the next round at Silverstone.

A big thanks to the guys at Elite Motorsport, who worked incredibly hard to fix multiple gearbox issues through the course of the weekend!