A double podium!

Races 4, 5 & 6

18 & 19th June 2022

DOUBLE PODIUM AT BRANDS HATCH 🏆🏆

Round 2 of the civic cup official at Brands Hatch treated me well. A few issues with the car left us with a DNF in race 2 but a double podium in race 1 and 3 as well as being awarded driver of the day more than make up for that. I’m getting closer to the top pace but there’s still a few things to work on and learn. I’m hoping to carry this momentum onto round 3 on the 16th of July at Oulton Park (My home track!)

Qualifying – P3 / P5

Qualifying went as well as it probably could, we were out on used tyres from Cadwell to save our new tyres for Sunday due to the threat of heavy rain, I managed to set a time early on that was good enough for P3 although like most other people couldn’t improve on that in the second half of the session. The time’s were incredibly close across the entire grid with thousandths separating each spot so a bit more here or less there and I could’ve been in a very different spot.

Race 1 – P3

P3 on the grid was converted into P3 in the race. A great start had us up with the leaders and I managed to stick with them until around the half way point where my tyres dropped off heavily due to how much they’d been used at this point. A bit of rain made it interesting but it was more psychological, there was enough coming down to wet the windscreen and make me use the wipers but not enough to make the track particularly slippy as we already had the tyres hot!

Race 2 – DNF

Race 2 unfortunately didn’t go to plan. Due to a top 10 reverse from the race 1 results I lined up P8 on the grid, I had a great first few laps and was rapidly making my way up the order until I was forced out nearly off the track by another competitor. Going into Paddock hill that same lap I had my gear pop out on the downshift (the start of my issues) causing me to go deep on the brakes due to no engine braking and then have no drive to the wheels to balance the rear of the car, this sent me into a massive slide facing nearly 90° the wrong way! I managed to save it but dropped down the order to 15th. I managed to make my way back up to 10th place but the car was getting harder and harder to get in gear until eventually on the last lap after catching 9th I lost all my gears out of Graham Hill. I got the car back to the pits and could’ve coasted across the line if I knew it was the last lap but unfortunately was classified as a DNF.

After figuring out what we thought was the issue with the car we took it back to the paddock and the team got to work straight away. It turned out our clutch had completely shredded one side of the friction plates meaning it was completely useless, as well as this our rear engine mount had sheered its mounting bolt and our exhaust manifold was completely bent, probably due to a hit on the rear. The team worked incredibly hard to get a new clutch in, new rear engine mount on and a new exhaust manifold fitted as well as re-align the car and get it safe to drive all in only a few hours. I made it to the assembly area with minutes to spare and I can’t thank the team enough, If one thing went wrong I wouldn’t have been on the grid for the 3rd race.

Race 3 – P3

Race 3 resulted in another P3 finish but this time from 5th on the grid due to my second fastest lap in qualifying. Straight away on the start I was up to 4th and in the fight with the leaders, a brief safety car bunched the field up and I was running 4th in a pack 5 cars with only 1.5 seconds covering all of us. It stayed like this until a few minutes from the end when the moves started to be made. 2 minutes from the end I saw my chance for 3rd as the car in front drifted slightly wide through clearways, I stuffed my car up the inside and got alongside going down the start finish straight, I completed the move up the inside of Paddock hill as the other car ran out wide onto the gravel, from here with only a couple laps to the end I drove safe and brought it home for another P3 finish!

Overall a brilliant result for only my second weekend in the Civics, two podiums in the bag and a driver of the day award thanks to Andy McEwan and Paul O’Neill.

Huge thanks to the Kinetic Motorsport team for the effort they put in this weekend, the fact we even made it out for race 3 after the repairs needed from race 2 was down to their extreme hard work and dedication. You guys couldn’t have worked harder so thank you!

I also want to thank all my sponsors for getting me out there this weekend, it wouldn’t be possible without them all and their support has been amazing!

Results: https://www.tsl-timing.com/event/222470