The circuit at Spa Francorchamps in Belgium is absolutely legendary and I was looking forward to driving in the tyre tracks of some F1 greats!? After the result at Brands Hatch Jake and I were confident of a fantastic weekend of racing ahead of us.? Arriving at the track was surreal, it was the mountainous scenery that hit me and after Jake went out first and came in with a massive grin on his face, I couldn?t wait to get out in the car.? I went out and just smiled all the way round, it felt surreal to be on that very track I had watched F1.
The start of the race didn?t go off smoothly and a broken differential connector put the car out of qualifying and we started on the 19th row of the grid in the opening race.? As this was a joint meeting between British GT Championship, the Dutch GT4 and other competitions the grid had more than 50 cars and Jake was held up by some slower cars in his first stint.? Luckily our smooth changeover left me able to move up to second after an incident at La Source hairpin.? The track is lovely because there are some long straights which give you a real feel for the speed at 150mph. I arrived at the fast long sweeping chicane which I had to drive on the absolute edge, most of the time I was driving the car with the rear end chasing through the corners. I was drifting and just hoping when I reached the curb it would grip and fire me into the next corner. It was pretty scary but it is the only way to drive fast. I had to be neat and tidy and make sure everything flowed to the get the right lines for every corner.
I drove the opening stint in the second race and managed to set the fastest lap in the GT4 class but our second place finish in the first race meant we had an extra 10 seconds in the pits during the changeover. Despite the delay, Jake managed to pass on of the Lotus Evoras to fourth place at the chequered flag.
Overall it was a good weekend on a challenging circuit and I am pleased we came away with a second and fourth, but I think we could have done even better if we had got the qualifying sessions. Starting so far behind our competitors due to all the cars meant it was impossible to win our class.
However the experience was amazing and we finished the day three-tenths of a second off the KTM Xbow which felt amazing! Spa is the best circuit in the world for me, the views, the history and all the motorsport legends who have raced there just sums up how much character the Spa circuit has.
