Here is a take from Pip Hammond on how Oulton went :)
I don’t think I’ve ever been so pleased to finish 2nd!
I love racing at Oulton but I was a little bit worried that the Boxster might struggle against some of the more nimble cars. Fortunately - with this being Gavin’s home race - we were able to get some Friday morning testing in and while a series of red flags limited our running to minutes rather than hours, it was actually the first time we’ve been able to test the car beyond its initial shakedown... after 3 races! This set us up well for qualifying, in which we took 6th in class, 17th overall - our best to date!
Jon Elsey
Along with a strong turnout from the PDC regulars, we also called upon additional local knowledge of our Muffin Motorsport 2CV 24 hour teammates Chris and Maria. This set up a tweak to our pitstop procedure following the fuel “scare” at Silverstone, where Chris joined Rich on fuelling duties. Jason would run comms, Esther on timing, Sheaky on filler cap/fire extinguisher, and even our former rival Ryan Lowry was standing close enough to get roped into pitstop duty at the time!
Gavin drove a strong first stint after initially getting shuffled back by some wayward cars on the first lap and the race settled into a rhythm for the first hour or so until one of the TCR Seat’s went off at the first corner. There was a delay in deploying the safety car which looked like it might catch some of the team’s out who blinked early whilst cars were still circulating at racing speed. We tried to play a little strategy here but it didn’t quite work out - although it didn’t cost us much ground either. Nevertheless the class B order in front of us was a little jumbled up when the race restarted.
My stint really came together and for the first time I was really able to move forward through the field. After making up a couple of spots to 5th, a second safety car bunched the field again and put the next 3 cars in my sight for a 20 minute sprint to the end (the NSX was laps ahead!). I got a good restart and within a couple of laps I pushed my way to 2nd, and made a little gap to hold until the end. It was also 8th overall!
I’ve won some big trophies and races over the years but this second place is up there with them all. There was some good fortune, good strategy and good people involved. But this result didn’t flow easily, it was a grind and grinds don’t always pay off. But that’s why it’s rewarding. We’ll keep making it a bit better every time, and keep creeping it towards the front.
Thankyou as always to PDC Racing, RS Components, #ABAC #AIRNET, Morson International, Carbone Lorraine CL Brakes UK, MOT Motorsport - MRF Motorsport Tires, Pin Gin, #SRElectrical and all family and friends for the support. We have a something a little special planned with RS for the final round at Silverstone - more to come on that soon 😎🏁