15/04/07 » Silverstone » HS Motorsport start as they mean to go on with a victory in the first race of the season

After six months without a race meeting and very little testing in between, Friday was used mainly for Brett to get back into a rhythm. It didn’t take long however for the team to pick up where they had left off, and Brett was setting the pace once again by midday. He remained quickest until some of the field fitted new tyres towards the end of the day. The team elected to save their new tyres for Saturday qualifying, but still ended the day second quickest, only a tenth of a second off.

Saturdays qualifying session was a disappointment after the car had been looking so promising on the previous day. Brett would start 4th for race one. The problem was put down to difficulty with traffic throughout the session and a slight misjudgement in set up to suit the new tyres.

A difficult start for Brett (the second placed car had stalled on the grid in front of him) saw him go into turn one in fifth position, but by the end of the first lap he had already moved back into fourth. Instantly the car had regained its pace from Friday testing and he quickly moved into third place on lap two, and set about reeling in the leaders. By lap six he had closed the gap to less than two tenths of a second. This was closely followed by a fantastically brave overtaking manoeuvre around the outside of copse corner on lap eight, leaving him with only one more car to dispose of. It took another five laps for Brett to get close enough to mount a challenge for the lead, which he once again did around the outside, this time into brooklands. He then kept his head down and made the most of the backmarkers to extend his lead to two and half seconds by the time the chequered flag dropped.

This put Brett on pole for race 2. After making it into turn one in first, and establishing a gap between himself and second place on lap two, the red flag came out after a five car incident. The race was stopped and there was a full restart, which didn’t favour the HS Motorsport car. Too much wheelspin off the line this time meant Brett dropped to P3. He made it back into second on lap two, but the leader had already pulled out a two second gap by this time. He began closing in at around two tenths per lap, but by lap ten the car began suffering from gear selection problems. He had to settle for second, finishing a tenth of a second behind.

At the end of the weekend this puts the team equal first in the championship, confident for the next round at Pembrey.