This was always going to be the busiest weekend of the year and one of the highlights and it didn’t disappoint. There were thousands of race fans at Brands and so many of them had come to support the British drivers. This was really evident during the grid walks and the pit walk because Ben actually had fans queuing to meet him, get his autograph or a picture. It was a fantastic experience for him and quite incredible for the rest of the team because of the incredible support he had. People were particularly interested in the fact Ben was only 16, which they couldn’t believe, and also how he had managed to be driving at this level by this age. On the Sunday they wanted to talk about the incident he was involved with on the Saturday and how he had managed to control the car back to the pits.

In terms of the driving, Ben started very well. He was 7th fastest in Friday practice and he felt the car was set up perfectly for the track. He also quickly got to grips with the many challenges this short circuit has in terms of elevation changes and off-camber corners and he was really looking forward to the weekend. In qualifying, he did a great job but missed out on the final top 12 shoot-out by only 1 tenth of a second but he knew the pace was there so was ready for the first race.

The first race was full of incident and unfortunately Ben was caught up in quite a bit of it. He was squeezed between 2 cars going through Druids in the first lap and the damage to his bodywork subsequently caused a puncture. After a quick pit stop, vibration in the front of the car caused by the earlier impact caused his bonnet to come loose and eventually spring open! The picture shows how dramatic this was, but despite this he managed to get the car back to the pits although this meant his race was over.

Sundays race was a much more successful, and a lees chaotic experience although his participation was in doubt because of the Elite 1 race. 2 laps before the finish, Ben’s team mate suffered a transmission failure which meant the car had to be brought back to the pits by a recovery truck. The mechanics quickly identified the problem as a broken half shaft and in around 20 minutes had stripped down the rear axle, replaced the broken part, checked all other parts and rebuilt the car. This was incredible work by the guys and allowed Ben to breathe a sigh of relief and focus on his preparations for the race. Ben started 24th because of his incidents in race 1 but managed to get up to 17th with some nice overtaking moves and very clean driving. He was really pleased with this result and Lucas Lasserre, his Elite 1 team mate, described it as his best race of the year so far in terms of car control, race management and overall performance.

This was a great finish to a fantastic weekend and it really gives Ben, and the team, something very solid to build on for the next round in Most.