With only 2 weeks since our successful last MSVT SuperCup race, which you have read about here, we were on the way down the A1 to the sunny Garden of England, to Brands Hatch in Kent.

Below is the layout of the Brands Hatch GP Circuit, which is the same as they use in the BTCC, and as it was when the F1 circus visited here in the 80s:

What did I say about the Sunny Garden? Turns out it was going to be heavy rain from early Saturday morning at least into mid afternoon. That would not have been too bad if we were not out for Qualifying at 09:00 (first on track) but then racing at 16:05 (the 6th race). It was going to be a long day of watching the river flow down the paddock!

Supercup Qualifying

Qualifying in these conditions was going to be as much about survival as well as position. I've driven the GP circuit 3 times, all in the dry, the last in 2019, so figuring out where to go in the wet for the first time was going to be tricky.
I was behind Michael in the queue in the Assembly area, we had about 4 or 5 cars in front of us. On the tentative drive out of the pits and through paddock, I figured the best idea would be to get round as many cars as possible on this outlap, warm the brakes and tyres then get a couple of clean laps in.

My first flying lap was a 2:03.230 which felt painfully slow, but was 2nd quickest at the time. I got a bit of traffic on the 2nd lap, so didn't improve my time and we were demoted to 3rd behind Hufford in the M3 and Jackson in the Supercopa.
I had more traffic on my next lap as well as a spinner in front of me, but luckily was still up on my best time as I navigated through the spray, managing to knock over a second off that time, with a 2:01.893 which maintained our 3rd overall position, and 1st in class.
Another lap was compromised by traffic so I decided to go for 1 more lap. Famous last words! Into Paddock the back end immediately came loose, then I was a passenger down the hill sideways and onto the gravel.

With a need to change my underpants, I radio'd back to the guys for Ryan to get ready to take over. He had driven the GP circuit less than me, with his last time round here in 2019 in our KTM X-Bow (before we bought it, with Grant, the current owner in the passenger seat), so he was literally thrown in at the deep end with the conditions out there!
We managed to hold on to 3rd overall, a great result in front of a fair few Class S cars.

As you can see, Ryan's times were a fair way off, but there were 2 double waved yellow zones for issues, so the changes of improving were slim. This didn't stop the Class B car of Sam Gay and Colin Tester jumping us at the last minute by 0.094s. A great lap for Colin, using all his knowledge and experience as an instructor here, to pip us to 3rd overall.
Michael did great in the Ibiza, with 7th overall and 2nd in Class B, showing up a lot of the Class S and A cars behind in the tricky conditions.

A video of qualifying is below, we have left it in full since there were a few hairy moments!:

Supercup Race

Brands has a strange pit straight, it is heavily cambered, so P1 and P3, in my opinion, are at a disadvantage as it is quite steep there so when you launch, the car seems to slide sideways more than push forwards. With us sat in P4, it seemed to be a better place to be!
If it were wet, it would be even worse with a river running down the track, but it had dried up massively, we were basically at a full dry setup for the start.

The full race is below, or continue reading for my analysis.

I got off the line pretty well, jumping ahead of Colin Tester in the Integra and pulling alongside Gary in the Orange M3, but Nick in the Leon was gone, pulling a few car lengths down Paddock Hill. The Class S Cars, with up to 40whp/ton more can pull on the straights!
I had some great battles with Gary, then with Callum Noble in the Pink M3 jumped between and had a few tussles with him. I did not have the straight line speed to get past them, but I could keep with them through the corners.
4 laps in, Darren Goes had come from 13th on the Grid to pass me and start to reel in the guys in front. I was still able to keep with them but no chance of passing.
On Lap 10, the leader Nick Jackson in the Leon went wide at Sheene Curve passing a back marker, allowing us all through.
As we started lap 11, Gary and Callum were all over each other, with Gary just behind. In the braking zone at the top of Paddock, Gary misjudged his braking point and had to turn in, just tagging the back of Callum, sending them both into tank slappers and then Gary nearly shoving me off. Around the next corner he pulled over to the side of the track to retire, probably with some suspension damage.
This promoted me to 2nd overall, with Darren Goes in the Leon quite a way in front, but still in my sights. Double waved yellows at Clearways hurt me a fair bit, meaning the gap was just less than 5s to the leader.
I did a couple more laps, and was on to the radio to the guys asking when they wanted me to come in. As the pitlane was mental, they asked me to stay out until there was a bit more room.
I lost a lot of time behind a lapped car through the double waved yellow before the pit entry, so I was in a bit of a flap going over the line to set the timer for the 2 minute stop.

As you can see from above, Ryan either judged the stop perfectly or was very lucky, as we had the shortest stop of the whole field, with a 2:00.571. Very close to a 1 lap penalty!
Ryan was back out and on the pace quickly, but only managed 5 full laps before the race was red flagged after Barrie Culley had a big shunt between Stirling and Clearways, covering the track in debris. Luckily he was OK after a quick precautionary trip to the hospital.
Ryan had been on his fastest lap before the flag was out, so he was getting into the grove!
Michael unfortunately slipped back a place in class as the 205 GTI of Alex Di Donato managed to get in front, but he still maintained a podium place for Class B! Not bad to say he did half a day here a few weeks ago.

My lap times were not as consistent as I would hope, but I was behind someone for most of the race, or navigating traffic, so it was not too bad really. My fastest lap was just before I pitted, as I has some clear air and did not get held up in the Yellow Flag zone.

We have done a VLOG on the weekend. It has most of the race as well, with full commentary this time, which was missing from the last SuperCup race as TSL did not broadcast it.

A bit thank you to Paul, Toby and Mathisse for their efforts again this weekend! Another race, another Trophy! This also maintains our 2nd position overall in the SuperCup Championship, but we will need some good results to keep it that way for the rest of the season!

Photos courtesy of MSV

Some of you may have also noticed that we did our first Live Stream from inside the car this weekend. It went pretty well other than a sound issue, which seems to be resolved now. Our plan is to try again on Saturday and Sunday at Silverstone for the Trackday Championship and Trackday Trophy.

Kit used for Live Stream:
VBOX HD2 HDMI
LiveU Solo HDMI
2 x Huawei E8372H-153 4G LTE USB Dongles
EE 4G Data SIM
Vodafone 4G Data SIM