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Silverstone 27th April Race Report
This was my first ever race meeting and I was, understandably, a little nervous. There were 22 entrants in the Mk1 MR2 Racing group, so a pretty sizeable field for my first outing.
Soon, the 15 minute qualifying session loomed. Waiting on the grid to go out, the heart was beating rather substantially. However, as soon as I passed the gates onto track with 21 other identical MR2s, the nerves soon disappeared. I managed to find a bit of space on the track and get a couple of clear, clean laps in. I still felt, however, that I could have gone faster.
Before the Sunday, I wanted to learn as much as possible from the Race Day, so I would have been happy wherever I qualified, to be (almost) honest. So to find out I qualified 5th, I was over the moon. And I was only 0.5 seconds off the leaders pace. Result!
Race 1
Right, so the first race. Starting in 5th and I didn't get a brilliant start. By the end of the first lap I was down to 9th place after being a bit too tentative. However, I decided to just get my head down and try and regain some of the lost places. Throughout the course of the race I picked off the people in front of me, one by one, and I managed to get past 4 of them in total. This meant I finished back where I started, 5th place. I was very pleased with how I did, and winning back the places I lost at the start of the race was a nice feeling. my fastest lap was also a mere 1 hundredth off the fastest lap of the race, which was also a nice bonus.
Race 2
So for the second race, again I started 5th (grid position in race 2 based on second fastest qualifying lap) This time I made a better start, and by the exit of the first corner I was up to 4th. At the end of the first lap, the front 4 cars, me being one of them, had broken away from the rest of the field. I was all over the car in front of me, and a few laps later I managed to get past him to move up into to 3rd place. In the same lap, I passed the next car, putting me into 2nd.
The leader of the race won the series in 2006, and he has been a pro racing driver for 7 years. Ironically, he was also my instructor on a couple of track days last year, and everyone regards him as the one to beat. This made it that much sweeter when I nosed past him on a few occasions to take the lead of the race, only for him to snatch it back off me a corner later. I was quicker than him on a few parts of the track, gaining on him mostly on certain corners.
At one point, we were side by side down the straight. I braked a bit earlier than him as he had the inside for the approaching corner so I could duck back up his inside on the exit. However, the then 3rd place guy followed him through but, unfortunately, out-braked himself, meaning I had to take avoiding action and catch a bit of a slide. This knocked me right back down to 5th and, to tell the truth, annoyed me a bit!
However, for the next 3 laps, me and the guy in front had an absolutely superb battle for 4th. I've watched it back and in those 3 laps we changed places about 9 times, about a season's worth for F1! I was running 4th on the last lap until I missed a gear coming out onto a straight, which dropped me back two places. I managed to get 5th back on the last corner and was right behind the 4th place man at the flag.
I was obviously a bit annoyed returning to the pits, knowing I could have easily come in the top 3 and perhaps even won. The offending out-braker sportingly apologised to me and there were no hard feelings. At the end of the day, it's racing, and it happens. When I think of the broader picture though, to have been leading the race on my first ever race day, that's something I could barely have dreamt of. Mum and Dad were both very, very proud and they said they had their hearts in their mouth just watching.
The MotorsTV film crew were there, they interviewed me in the morning and had in-car cameras in two of the top four cars in the last race. When they broadcast the race they used some of my in car footage and featured an interview with my, another first!
So overall, a super first race, it couldn't have gone much better. I returned the car to the garage at the end of the day without a scratch on it that wasn't there at the beginning. More importantly, I had an absolute whale of a time. Enjoyed it hugely.
To see the rest of the pictures from this meeting, SEE HERE.
For on-board videos from this meeting, SEE HERE.
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