Race 1 Summary: Brands Hatch
After pulling onto the grid and establishing the extent to which the Porsche Cup had dried the track, the decision was made to stash away the wet tyres and instead elect for the standard slick tyre, the main concern with this being that the BTCC Finals are notoriously aggressive and neither driver wanted to be tapped into an uncontrollable spin on the greasy circuit.
Just as the warm up lap commenced, Senna Proctor could be heard via radio asking for complete silence unless absolutely necessary due to the concentration he will need to invest into driving slick tyres on a track with such little friction.
The lights turned green and in Tom Chilton’s Astra, “wheelspin caused a slow start, and a last-minute call on the grid for a setup change meant we didn’t have time to adjust the rear right-hand wheel which affected my left-hand corners,” – Tom Chilton, Racing Driver for PMR. This resulted in the number 2 Astra falling back to 7th place at the beginning of the race. Meanwhile, Senna improved on his Qualifying position, moving from P13 to P10 in the space of Lap 1.
During Lap 2, Morgan spun off the slippery track, and Proctor used the opportunity to climb forward to 9th place, right behind Chilton who had been demoted to 8th behind Plato.
By Lap 4, Chilton and Proctor had both climbed into 6th and 7th place respectively, which is where their battle took place until Lap 7, when Austin’s Avensis came off the track, promoting both Vauxhall Astras to 5th and 6th place respectively.
The remainder of the race for PMR was made up of both Chilton and Proctor battling for 5th place, with both crossing the line in the same positions they made for themselves in Lap 7.
“It was a strong team result. I was quicker than Tom at the start but Tom was defending. The track got drier and drier and we got quicker and quicker.” – Senna Proctor, Racing Driver for PMR
“I’m really happy with that result, it’s our best team effort of the season and possibly the highest team finish in the BTCC? Looking forward to completing the setup change so we can give it our all in Races 2 and 3.” – Tom Chilton, Racing Driver for PMR
“The two have already demonstrated themselves to be a strong team, it was great to see our young driver challenging our more experienced one, so I’m naturally very excited to see what the boys can do with the remaining races of the day.” – Adam Weaver, Team Principal for the Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall team
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Phoebe Kingdon
Power Maxed Racing
Tel - 07714 669318