Last weekend would play host to round 4 of the British Talent Cup at the 2.4332 Mile Brands Hatch GP Circuit. It would be a weekend of highs and lows for the Wilson Racing riders at the Kent Circuit with lots of positives to take away. For the remainder of the season the Wilson Racing outfit have also now signed Julian Correa to the team after the unfortunate brake down of the Microlise Creswell Racing squad due to Johns passing.
Friday would play host to the hottest day of the weekend with temperatures reaching 30 degrees Celsius by midday! FP1 and the riders headed out onto the track with Harrison, Ben and Sam having ridden the Indy circuit last month at NG they all felt confident in the first sector of the GP circuit. With temperatures already at 26 degrees Celsius it was set to be a sweltering day! As FP1 dew to a conclusion the fastest Wilson Racing rider would be Harrison after setting a time of 1:39.028 which placed him into 7th, closely followed by Julian in 8th who was only 300ths of a second slower. Ben would cross the line in 19th, Iwan in 22md, and Samuel in 24th after still suffering some shoulder pain from his crash here just last month. FP2 in the afternoon and with temperatures hotter again the riders headed out to go and set their best times whilst also finding where they could improve on track. At the end of FP2, Harrison finished in 5th, Ben in 19th, Samuel in 23rd, Julian in 9th and Iwan in 22nd.
Saturday morning and with the weather cooler then Friday it was time for qualifying. The riders headed out and were all aiming for their best times. The session was 30 minutes giving the riders a further chance of setting their best times as they had previously only had 25 minutes on the Friday. As the chequered flag came out Harrison managed to set a time of 1:37.236 which would see him starting an impressive 5th on the grid for race 1, followed closely by Julian who crossed the line with a best time to place him 6th on the grid, Ben managed to finish 20th, Samuel 24th and Iwan 23rd.
Race 1
Saturday afternoon and it was time for race 1! As the riders headed to the grid there were high hopes that all the riders would manage to finish in the best possible positions. Lights out and away they went with all the riders getting good starts, and especially Harrison and Julian who managed to gain a few places in only a few turns. As the race progressed Harrison and Julian dropped back from the leading group into the second pack, until lap 10 when the managed to work together closing the gap and rejoining the leading group. There was now a group of 8 riders battling it out for a podium finish. Further down the order and Ben, Iwan and Samuel were all pushing hard aiming for a point scoring finish. They were all battling in the same group until on lap 10 Samuel had to retire from the 14-lap race due to a technical. As the race progressed on Harrison and Julian continued to battle for every inch of track and as they came round the last corner Harrison just dropped off of the back of the leading pack meaning he finished in a respectable 6th, Julian crossed the line just Infront of him at the back of the leading pack meaning he finished in 5th, Ben crossed the line in 19th, and Iwan in21st.
Race 2
After all of the excitement of race 1 it was finally time to start race 2 on Sunday afternoon. The riders would be lining up on the grid with Julian in 2nd after being only 0.040 seconds from pole, Harrison would line up in 5th, Ben in 21st, Samuel in 24th and Iwan in 20th. The riders set off on their warm up laps with all riders making it back to the grid in a timely manner, however when they lined up ready for the race start the red flag was held for a few seconds longer to allow Clayton to clear the grid as he had a technical whilst on the grid. The decision was then made to do an extra warm up lap and to cut the race down to 13 laps from 14. So as the riders headed back round for their extra warm up lap then lined up on the grid it was once again lights out for the second race of the weekend! All the Wilson Racing riders got a great start once again however it wouldn’t be long before Harrison and Julian would start to drop off of the back of the leading back once more. As the race progressed onto lap 4 Samuel pulled into the pits and chose to retire from the race stating he felt the bike didn’t feel quite right. So, with that Samuels weekend came to a premature end. However back on the circuit Julian and Harrison had managed to close the gap between themselves and the leading group, whilst Ben and Iwan were racing still further down the field. Onto the last lap and the last corner and Harley McCabe managed to get underneath Harrison leading to him loosing out on his 6th position and crossing the line in 7th. Julian managed to finish in 5th, Ben in 18th and Iwan was only 0.079 seconds off of scoring his first point this season when he crossed the line in 16th.
With another positive weekend of point scoring and rider improvement we now look forward to our next round which is at Moto GP in just over a weeks’ time. As always, the team would like to thank all of our sponsors as you all allow us to keep developing and bringing on the next generation of world class riders!