WOW, what a way to open the season.
30 drivers from across the Armed Forced and veteran network lined up at Silverstone to take on the 3.67 mile track, the home of British Motorsport.
Pre-race practice has seen the lap times of the field seperated by up to 6 seconds. With the lap being doninated by long straights getting a poor exit from one of the classic turns could leave our drivers far behind their competitors.
Qualifying
Setting a very early fast pace was Ryan Martin one of the RAF eMotorsports leading talents. Puttin his car on Pole just 2 laps in. He wasnt to improve on that time.
Rounding out the Top 3 was Stuart McPharden amd Paul Heyhoe, a newcomer to the championship.
Our reigning champion taking 6th place, less than a second behind the lead, and just 2s seperating the top 15 drivers.
It was set to be a thrilling close race.
Race 1
With a domintaing start Ryan got a very early lead that proved to be unassailable by the rest of the field finishing with a lights to flag victory.
Thats not to say the race was run. 2nd to 11th place were seperated by only a few 10ths of a second for the majority of the race with the order chnging by the corner at time.
Some high profile incidents involving our sone 9f our leading drivers including Michael Clough, Tom Stevens, Luke Arpino and even the 2022 champion Craig Durrant left the results wide open.
A last lap, last corner incident saw two cars cross the line sideways in a thrilling end to race 1 of the 20 race season.
A random number 6 was drawn meaning that yhe top 6 finishes from Race 1 would be reversed for race 2.
Race 1 Results
Race 2
With Chris Boland leading the start and the Race 1 winner in 6th, left with some work to do.
Most of the pack made it throigh the first lap relativeley incident free however Waind (RAF) and Chambers (RN) had a huge contact into the village hairpin, collecting Darren Berris in the process.
The top 6 become the top 4.
Chris Boland was able to lead out the pack before being challenged by Barron who ran out of talent into Stow corner and collecting Chris Boland on the outside of him.
Martin now up to P2.
And that was just the first lap.
With close battles up and down the order the commentry team didnt know where to watch.
Once again P2 to P6 battled it out throughout the race swapping places and going 2 and 3 wide at any opportunity. Our 2021 champion James King clicnching 2nd place from Pawley by just 0.1s.
Race ending incidents for Luke Arpino, Clough and Hardwick brought to a close an absolute belter of a race.
Onto week 2 at Brands Hatch Indy, the shortest track of the season
Race 2 Results
Splunk
During the race we saw an astonishing impact between Hardwick and Clough. An unsighted Hardwick hit the stationary car if Michael Clough who had spun out at Copse.
The impact caused both cars to launch in the air.
But what does the data tell us.
Using the Splunk data stream from Hardwick’s Car we can see that the jncident ocvured at around 100mph with him not lifting the throttle until around 35m before impact.
The impact caused 50m/s² deceleration, dropping over 60mph off his speed in just 0.8s.
This would have been a life chamging incident for both drivers had it been on track.
This level of analysis would prive vital to any race team out on track. Providing immediate notification of the incident and its severity, not only to the teams engineer but to the medical service at the track.
Race Highlight
Check out the race highlights brought to you by our totle sponsor BFBS
