After not having had any real track time since 2019, Brands Hatch would be my first proper outing in the Formula Vee for 2020.
To shake off the cobwebs, and to see if I could translate all the lockdown sim racing into a reality, I decided to book a Friday morning testing session.
The weather looked ominous, but the circuit stayed dry throughout the day, the circuit had tons of grip (thanks to the BTCC the weekend before).
I was really pleased with my progress having achieved a 56.26 as my best time (ever ever)!
Race day came, and so did the rain. I was nervous and decided to air on the side of caution for qualifying…perhaps a bit too much as I only qualified in 23rd for race 1 and 22nd for race two out of 29 cars. I had places to make up in the races; armed with the knowledge that Brands always delivers carnage, I thought I may have a few places gifted to me.
Race 1 looked to be just as bad a downpour as qualifying…with some sound advice, I decided to slacken off all the suspension on my car, leaving it as soft as possible.
I got an ok start, and made up a few places, sadly only to see my teammate, Vaughn, beached at paddock hill. I didn’t realise it at the time, but he was actually leading the race!
The Safety Car led us round a few laps before racing commenced, I was sitting in 10th for quite a while before a misjudgement of the available grip at Druids saw me slowly spin round and lose 5 places…I was gutted, and just wanted to survive to the chequered flag error and incident free.
I changed my line through that corner to ensure I got round without trouble, this did open me up to an attack from James Huckle in his Sheane MK1, I was able to close the door at Graham Hill to ensure I kept my position.
My visor then decided to steam up right in the middle, so I lost all centre visibility, I had to drive with my head pointing to the left or the right, looking out of one eye to make sure I could see where I was going! Anti fog on the inside next time 🙂
Never been so glad to see the chequered flag, still I was happy with the 9 places gained.
Result: P14
The skies looked ominous throughout the day, patches of rain fell as we were waiting for our turn on the circuit. Around 5pm the track started to look dry! Taking a gamble I reverted the car back to it’s stiffer, dry setup.
Again an ok start, taking one place into Paddock Hill.
In true Brands Hatch style, there was plenty of carnage in the run up to Druids. This resulted in a red flag and a restart. My teammate Matt unfortunately got clipped resulting in another DNF for TJT.
I managed to get an excellent re-start this time round, and was able to jump all the way up to at least 12th from 22nd place! In the run up to Druids sadly I saw contact happen between my teammate (Vaughn) and another car which resulted in yet another Safety Car for the day and another TJT DNF. The contact would leapfrog me into 10th, where I stayed for pretty much the rest of the race.
In the midst of some great battles with Maurice Gloster and Rik Lanyi; I was up into 8th place as some front runners either had contact or mechanical issues.
Sadly the race ended under red flags, and due to the 1 lap count back, I was placed as 10th overall.
My best result to date, which came bittersweet due to the 3 DNF’s TJT unfortunately suffered.
Here’s hoping for better team-wide luck next time!