13/05/07 » Pembrey » Brett comes out on top in torrential conditions

With most of Friday testing being missed due to dangerous amounts of standing water, qualifying one was a stab in the dark for all of the competitors. Brett appeared to have good pace on a wet but rapidly drying track, but finished up a disappointing P3 for race one. Traffic towards the end of the session meant that Brett couldn’t get a fast lap in when the circuit was at its driest/fastest.

The track had dried completely in time for race one. A good start meant Brett had made it into second by the first corner. The first two laps saw him under severe pressure, with positions changing twice between himself and the third place car. By lap three Brett had established a gap between himself and P3 which left him to concentrate on catching the leading car, now four seconds adrift. Ten laps later and he had closed the gap to eight tenths of a second and was looking certain to challenge for the lead imminently. But on the following lap, disaster struck. An upright failure meant that the front left wheels geometry was massively altered. Brett still continued, and nursed the car home over the final nine laps. His previous speed was lost however, his laptimes increasing by around half a second, meaning the team had to settle for a solid second place.

The rain continued to hold off for qualifying two, which Brett decided to cut short in order to save his tyres for the race. A time of 54.776 put him second on the grid, only two tenths off pole.

The weather again turned to torrential for Sundays race, a massive amount of standing water made it difficult to say the least, Brett was seen on more than one occasion with full opposite lock on just to try to keep the car in a straight line. He got away from the line well and made it into turn one in the lead. He then went unchallenged for the remainder of the race, extending his lead to over eight seconds at one point as he carved his way through the backmarkers.

A mature drive from the 18 year old. He managed to control the race from start to finish despite the conditions, proving he is capable of winning in all circumstances. The weekends results put Brett in the lead of the championship by two points.