It was a very wet weekend of racing at Snetterton, at the beginning of October, which left me with a really positive outlook, although the results did not reflect the speed that both Gus and I had shown. We came away with fourth place in race one, and had a crash with a recovering GT3 car in the second race which left us adrift in ninth place. Unfortunately that puts us out of realistic contention for the title, with just one three hour race to go at Silverstone in November.
Saturday’s wet practice and qualifying sessions went well, with us achieving our best qualifying result thus far. We took second place for race one and fourth place for race two. I had a chance at taking pole for the second race but made a mistake at the hairpin which dropped me back to fourth on the grid. Gus and I continued to show great pace in race one, Gus taking the first stint and handing over to me in second place. In the heat of a battle I dropped a wheel onto the wet grass on the exit of turn one, then continued pushing and battling with the sister HHC McLaren and one of the Aston Martins all the way to the flag to come home in a tight fourth place. It might have been so much better.
We went into race two with a fresh and optimistic outlook. Starting fourth I had got into third place before half way around the first lap colliding with a recovering GT3 car that came down my outside as we both turned into the left hander underneath the bridge. I had nowhere to go, we collided and both sustained damage forcing us into the pits for repairs. Back out a few laps behind the field and with a less than well balanced car we completed the race, finishing in ninth. The positive we took from that run was that we had showed once again that we definitively had the pace to finish on the podium, and potentially on any one of the three steps. So we are left to look forward the Silverstone now, just under a month away, where unfortunately there will not be any spectators to witness the 3 hour finale of the British GT Championship.
Massive thanks to The Hills Group, RaceHut, CORE and Webcetera for supporting me and making this season possible!