I’m sure most drivers will express the same feeling, but I find it very difficult to go to a race meeting and not be a part of it. Saying that, the thing that got me hooked on the BTCC was when I went to
Silverstone in 2005 as a spectator and just enjoyed the whole thing and got me hooked on doing it the following year.
I do some instructing from time to time so that kept me busy on the Saturday of the
Thruxton meeting, but I watched the races on the Sunday and it was good to watch it on TV and see what was going on as you don’t always see that side of things. It filled me full of envy and made me want to be out there, but its part and parcel of being a racing driver.
At
Croft however, I was busy elsewhere as I got asked to go and race the Team Modena Lamborghini at
Snetterton in the British GT Championship which went very well and was a successful weekend for us. That made missing another BTCC weekend easier, but I still got home and watched the racing that my mum had taped for me! I still got to see the races and made sure I knew what was going on as it keeps me thinking of what lies ahead and lets me keep an eye on who we need to beat on our return.
Looking back to the GT outing, I went to Snetterton with an open mind. The team had been there a week earlier and done something like 40 laps with a car that had just arrived, so to expect a car to run for two hours and be competitive after that amount of running was a big ask. However, the performance of the car was very good and we set a lap record at Snetterton and got up to second from the back of the grid before we had a problem at the pit stop and finished fourth.
It sounds a bit disappointing to have got to second and finished fourth, but if someone had offered us that at the start of the weekend then we would have taken it with open arms. It was good for the team to bond together and get to know the car and was a successful weekend that shows the potential of the whole package. They’d like me to be a part of the future programme with the car, so hopefully I’ll be out in it again.
