A Tough Weekend at Silverstone

Coming from a good start at Oulton, Sarah hoped to continue making good progress and getting more time in the car at Silverstone.

Qualifying was on a lovely sunny Silverstone Saturday morning.  Sarah went out of the pits ready to use the 25 minutes available.  Unfortunately, on the first lap out of the pits, Matt Shead made a very ambitious lunge into Woodcote corner, clipping Sarah's car at the front.  Sarah knew immediately that there was a problem as she simply had no power afterwards!  She came straight into the pits to find that the intercooler had been damaged which meant she had no turbo!  Each driver has to complete three laps in qualifying to be on the grid for the race so Sarah set to completing 3 laps with no turbo - a fairly painful experience!

As a result, Sarah started 14th on the grid - with only one other car behind her.  Lots to do!

"Doing three laps of the long Silverstone GP circuit without the turbo was terrible!" said Sarah, "The result is also that I've lost 25 minutes of time in the car and on the circuit, leaving me a huge amount to do in the race!"

So, back to the pits for repairs in readiness for Race 1!

A great start to Race 1!

Race 1 got off to a good start.  Sarah got a great start and overtook several cars.  However, it soon became apparent that, whilst she now had the turbo back, she was down on power and the car was over steering horribly!  Cars were just flying past her on the straight.  A few laps in and the Abarth Celebrity car being driven by John Gaw rolled at Stowe and so the safety car came out.  This gave Sarah the chance to catch back up.  The safety car came in and the race was back on - but only for a short period before there was another roller - this time James Blyth!  After a couple of laps under the safety car, the red flag was given bringing the race to an early end.  Sarah ended the race in 10th place which, in all the circumstances, was an excellent result!

 Race 2 was on Sunday afternoon - and another beautifully sunny day.  Sarah would be starting from 11th on the grid.  She got off to her usual great start and was up with the row in front of her in no time at all.  She had Roger Green on her right side and Cassey Watson on her left.  Then, Green decided to try to go left and Watson to go right leaving Sarah in the middle with no where to go!  Fortunately, Sarah kept pointing in the right direction but 3 into 1 doesn't go and it was Watson who was left fishtailing down the straight before the first corner.

Sarah continued on and, once again, got faster and faster each lap.  Towards the end of the race, Fiona Leggate appeared in her wing mirrors so she had to work hard to keep her behind!  She crossed the finish line in 10th place!

So, despite a tough weekend, Sarah came away with two top ten finishes and two more points finishes for the championship.

Sarah reflected on the weekend, "I think they call this type of weekend character building!  We've come up against some interesting issues and the team now need to go away and get the car sorted before the next round at Cadwell in five weeks time!"

The next round is at Cadwell Park in Lincolnshire on the 22nd and 23rd May.