Brands Hatch - First Ever Race

Brands Hatch on the 9th August 2025 - the day the racing bug truly bit me!

A bit of background of how I ended up in the Clio... It was originally and at the time of this race, owned by a stunt co ordinator that I work for. On a job earlier in the year, knowing how many track days I was doing, he said to me that if I got my race license I could have a go racing in his Clio as due to work commitments he wasn't racing that year and the car was sitting unused. I didn't need asking twice and less than I week later I presented him with a picture of my new shiny clubman race licence. By the end of the work day I was signed up to 750mc and entered into round's 11 and 12 at Brands Hatch.

Despite the fact that Brands is actually my closest circuit, I had never actually been there for any track days prior to booking to race there, time wasn't on my side and the best I could do prior to the race was an evening track day in my road Mini. Thankfully my friend is an ARD's instructor and he kindly volunteered to sit in the passenger seat and mainly shout 'don't brake!' at me while I tried to get my head around Paddock Hill Bend!

My first time actually driving the Clio (or Claude as he is now called!) was on the test day, the day prior to the race. Ben from WB Motorsport who runs the car introduced me to the wonderful invention of the Garmin Catalyst, and off I went trying to learn the Clio and the track, praying that I would be able to be at least a little bit competitive! After my second session out, Ben confirmed that I already beaten my boss's best lap time at Brands - definitely a mood booster!

The day of the race came and it was a beautiful hot August day. Pretty much perfect race conditions - minus sitting in full gear in a car with no air con. I was very lucky that a few of my family and friends come along, including my friend who'd given me the coaching a few weeks earlier.

Quali first, definite learning curve! Mid way through my first flying lap, a car in front of me decided to do a bit of off-roading through the gravel, resulting in a little kiss with the barrier - red flag. Sitting in the queue in the pit lane ready to rejoin, I switched the engine off to avoid overheating. Green light - back on again. All of a sudden the car felt different to drive and I couldn't work out why! I ended up putting in a time of 59.883, annoyingly over a second slower than my quickest lap on the test day. I later found out that traction control needs to be manually switched off every time the car is turned on - so I'd done the remainder of quali with traction control - lesson learned! Nevertheless, I ended up starting P19 out of 21, or P9 out of the 10 running in my class - I wasn't last!

Race #1

Definite case of clutch foot on the start line! Had an okay start, was relieved to make it through Paddock and Druids unscathed on the first lap. I ended up getting overtaken by the car behind me, and spent a lot of the race trying to work out how to get back past him. After a bit of a tank slapper at Graham Hill bend I fell behind again, only to catch back up with the car in front, making me realise that I was obviously a lot quicker than him, I just needed to work out how to get past him. The main 3 pieces of advice I got before the race were 1. Remember no race is won on the first corner, but many are lost. 2. If you catch up with a car, don't start following their lines, you're quicker than them for a reason. 3. Whatever you do, don't try and overtake at the outside of paddock. Anyway, penultimate lap, I overtook round the outside of Paddock. Thankfully it worked, and even after a missed gear shift going into druids I managed to hold my position and ended up finishing P6 in Class and P15 overall. Best lap time 58.542 - over a second quicker than my quali lap and just over 0.5s off the quickest lap time in my class. Happy Bunny!

Race #2

Still completely buzzing from race 1, I couldn't wait to get back out for the second race. I'd learned some lessons about where people would overtake and felt a lot happier in the car. I was starting the race P16, 3 places higher than race 1. Like race one I didn't have the best start, and my newly found nemesis overtook me, cue battle number 2. We ended up both coming round Clearways side by side and I got the overtake done by the start of the pit entry. All seemed good. Then we both saw the yellow lights and back offed to go into single file down Paddock - Safety Car. After a few laps the safety car was lifted and I ended up finishing 10s ahead of the guy behind me. I was happy - that was until I got a knock on my window telling me to go up to the Clerk with my camera. Turns out the yellow lights got switched on as we went under the light gantry on the pit straight so my overtake was then deemed as gaining an advantage under yellows. Places were reversed and I ended up P17, P7 in class, with a telling off. As much as I joke about the other car been my 'nemesis', he's actually a lovely guy and argued my case as he also didn't see the lights so he hadn't backed off either. Anyway, the main thing was the car was back to my boss in one piece. I'd had an incredible day and was already gearing up to sign up to Mallory.

The extra surprise came at the end of the day as I found out I'd been awarded driver of the day. I was bit gutted to have missed the podium celebrations (I was still on the way back from my Clerk's telling off!)

So first race complete, ticked off a lot of firsts. Some I don't want to repeat, but all a great learning curve. Bring on the next race!