Silverstone GP - 2nd July 2017 - Production BMW Rounds 7 and 8

It was back to Silverstone for 7 and 8 of the production BMW championship but this time we were on the Grand Prix circuit. Whilst it is great to be able to race on the GP circuit it does bring a slight issue, well I say issue more of a challenge in that we share the grid with the Toyo Tires Racing Saloons. This means the slower of the PBMW's need to keep and eye on their mirrors as the front running E36 M3's will be coming up to lap them towards the end of a 20 minute race, it also means the PBMW front runners have to deal with the traffic that it the back of the TTRS grid.

In recent years a welcome 20 second gap has been tried out and seams to help at the TTRS race car get a couple of laps in before the front running PBMW's are looking to make their way through the pack.

I headed out out for a busy qualifying session consisting of 54 cars, including 29 Production BMW's  early on Sunday morning with a aim of a time somewhere in the low 2:43's, obviously a 15 minute qualifying session doesn't give you all that much time to get many laps in especially when you only have 140BHP. Finished the session with a 2:43.462 around 1s behind the fastest PBMW lap of Will Davison, which left me 3rd in class with a healthy 1.1s advantage of the 4th placed David Graves.

As we had two grids the TTRS grid goes on the conventional light system with the PBMW going approximately 20s later on the drop of a flag, I got a fairly awful start but managed to just about hold 3rd place from dave graves despite a little touch down at the club chicane. I managed to build up a bit of a gap whilst Dave battled with Mark Palmer and by the time he'd started to close it it was a case of managing my way through the TTRS traffic without loosing too much time, after 20 minutes I managed my first PBMW podium at Silverstone.

Race 2 followed a very similar storey to race one other than on the second to last lap I very annoyingly locked the rear brakes, a tiny mistake meant I lost momentum going through the chicane and Dave Graves nipped through to take 3rd place.