Championship Progress: 7th -> 5th
Certainly a solid sequence of races with four consecutive podiums including my first win of the season.
Silverstone
We were quick all weekend and managed to put the car on the front row for both races. Both races were pretty uneventful. We finished 2nd in race 1, having made the decision to use our oldest tyres from qualifying. We just didn't have the pace to challenge the leader although we drew strength from the fact that even on these tyres we were the second fastest car.
In race 2 I got the jump on the pole sitter going into turn 1 and never looked back. Such was the pace advantage (we got the fastest lap) I was able to manage the tyres from about lap 3 onwards.
Sadly, the reverse grid race 3 was cancelled due to the rain on Sunday afternoon, so all my tyre preservation efforts were wasted.
Elite Motorsport, my GB3 team, have been working hard to get the car perfectly setup this season. We’ve been quite unfortunate not be on the top step of the podium previously, so this victory was very sweet!
Brands Hatch
Again, very quick in testing, fastest on the Indy circuit and 2nd fastest by 1/100 of the GP circuit. Fate was not on our side in qualifying. We managed to get to third, then strapped on some new tyres, only for the session to be immediately red-flagged. The organisers chose not to restart as the barriers had been damages in the incident that caused the red flag. This meant we did not get to use the new tyres so had to settle for being on the second row.
Race 1 was uneventful we finished where we started in third place. Unless you have a good 3 or 4 tenth pace advantage over the car in front, its very difficult to overtake around Brands Hatch, the GP section around the back causes a lot of dirty-air impacts though the medium speed corners.
In Race 2 I made a small mistake after a safety car restart and lost a place heading out of Surtees. Fortunately, I managed to recover the position by sending it up the inside heading into Paddock Hill bend a couple of laps later.
In the photo to the right you can see just as I started the move. I'm to the left of James Hedley, as we approach Paddock Hill, having pulled out of his slip stream moments before.
This move ensured my podium streak was maintained.
I had one of my best ever starts in the reverse grid race 3 , climbing from 22nd to 13th by turn 2 of the first lap. Some of this gain was due to a collision ahead of me through paddock and unbeknownst to me, my front wing picked up some damage in that carnage which forced to pit and put me at the back of the pack. After which I recovered just one place to finish 16th.
We're now up to 5th in the Championship on the same points as Hedley who is in 4th. On to Zandvoort next. We tested there earlier this year so we go with some degree of confidence. It's a pretty physical track so I'll be in gym quite a lot between now and the race weekend.