Round 5 brought me to my home circuit, the legendary Brands Hatch in Kent, on the full GP circuit over the weekend of 23rd-24th July. “I went into Brands feeling good, it’s my local circuit and that meant I had support of family and friends. The weather was hot and I was determined to put on a good show”.
Unfortunately, the weekend didn’t quite start as planned, “I didn’t have a great time during practice on Friday with some issues holding us back in FP1 and wrong tyre choice in FP2”.
I took stock of the situation overnight in preparation for Qualifying and Race 1 on Saturday, I managed to put in a fast ‘banker lap’ placing me p12, a red flag shortly after caused a delay but I went out again and put in a final flying lap, placing myself P7 on the grid.
Later that afternoon the lights went out on Race1, “I had a great start and made it up to 5th but unfortunately there was a crash on Graham Hill on the run down from Druids Hairpin, causing a red flag. On the restart I made another good start but got caught in a battle which dropped me out of the fight I wanted to be in, I didn’t give up and managed to still finish p9”.
Race2 came on Sunday afternoon “I had an ok start and got myself into a 10 way battle for p5. I sat in the slipstream the whole race and on the last few laps I charged into the group taking p7. It was a great, close race between a number of us and reaffirmed to me that I have the pace to run at the front of the field”.
“I left Brands happy with my work but knowing that there is still a gap to bridge to the top3, My results and race pace made me feel confident that I am gaining ground on that gap”.
As always a special thank you to my sponsors and my team for a great bike and making racing possible.