Silverstone National April 2024

We went into Silverstone with no expectations, this being our first race. Right from the start of the weekend, we looked good. During qualifying, we continued to build on a strong start by setting the fastest time on three occasions, finally having to settle for P6. To say we were chuffed is an understatement.

Our elation was short lived, however, as the scrutineers informed us that we would need to stay back for additional checks. As it turns out, after purchasing the already prepped race car to what we were told was the EnduroKA specification, the car had an irregular exhaust back box and we were disqualified from qualifying and told we would need to replace it if we wanted to be included in the race.

We promptly went about trying to source a replacement OEM exhaust and were very lucky to have some help from a fellow competitor who had an EnduroKA spec car for sale in the paddock. They very kindly let us borrow the exhaust and we had less than an hour to extract it from the donor car and fit it to ours, which we did with minutes to spare!

Starting from the pit lane in P35 was a bit of an anti-climax but at least we were in the race. Mark started the race and quickly made up places. We swapped drivers after 1 hour and Ben did a fantastic job making up even more places. Then it was my turn. We had refueled at my stop so had a good stint of fuel on board when the safety car came out. Almost every pitted at this point, which put us in P6! We ran there for a while, however, our pit stop strategy was perhaps a little cautious making 5 stops instead of 3 like the top running teams. Because of this, we fell down the field but finished in a very strong P19.

I was running with the leaders for a few laps, albeit 5 laps down, and I'm pleased to say I was keeping pace with them. There's even a nice bit of commentary from the live stream complimenting me on being able to keep pace with the leaders.

All in all, a very good weekend. We went into the race hoping for nothing more than to finish the race and did not expect to show as much pace as we did. Bring on Donington National at the end of June!