Brands Hatch – Masters Historic Festival

After a successful April, Greg Thornton was going into weekend 2 of the FIA Masters Historic F1 Championship at the top of the table. It was a damp day at Brands Hatch for qualifying on Saturday but that didn’t stop Greg qualifying on Pole by 0.186 seconds with Simon Fish 2nd and Andy Wolfe 3rd.

 After a great qualifying session Greg Thornton was going into Race one on a high, believing he had a good chance for a win, however, due to a problem with the mechanical fuel pump and fuel starvation on the way up to Druids the engine faulted and Andy Wolfe powered up the inside in the Tyrrell to take the lead. By lap four with the electric fuel pump back on and the car running at 100% Greg managed to get his composure back and with some outstanding driving got back in the lead and ended up finishing the race in first with a gap of 10.086 seconds between him and Steve Hartley in second place.

 After a great come back in race one early on Sunday, Greg was fired up for the second and final race of the weekend. As the clouds came over Brands Hatch it looked like it was going to be a wet and slippery race promising to be an exciting event and it certainly didn’t disappoint. As in race one the fuel pressure issue which the team thought they had cured, Druids again was the Achilles heel and on the way up the hill the engine sputtered again, that was all Hartley needed and Greg lost the lead and it looked like it could stay that way as Steve Hartley started to pull away. Greg again had to dig deep and bury his frustration and drive his socks off. and that is exactly what he did, as he started to catch Hartley putting in consecutive fastest laps. After 12 laps Greg was filling Hartleys mirrors but spun the Lotus going past Hartley and this allowed Deman through as well finding himself 15 seconds behind,  he managed to not stall the Lotus and pirouetted the car back into the race and the gauntlet was down. With only a few laps to go Greg as if he was possessed started again to catch hand over fist on the 2 in front. 2 laps from the end Greg was back in the lead, making it a brilliant victory and an outstanding weekend for Greg, Classic team Lotus and Titan Historic Racing.

 A full weekend report can be found here – http://www.mastershistoricracing.com/masters-festival/event/