Louise Richardson and her family team, Richardson Racing team made further progress in the MSA formula championship as it had its latest rounds supporting the BTCC at Donington Park.
She was joined by a team mate for the first time this season in the form of Ollie Pidgley. Louise and the team were hopeful that running a second car would help the team improve as a whole and push them both into ever better finishes.
So Louise hoped to build on Brands Hatch, where she had got a twelfth place finish in race two after being taken out in race one.
Her lap times were strong in qualifying but even though she was only just over a second off the fastest times, the closeness of the championship meant she found herself in fifteenth place.
As race one got underway she got a great start and over the course of the race she managed to make up a few places to take twelfth overall equalling her best result from Brands.
Race two went even better as she lapped setting similar lap times to the front pack and made up an extra place to take her best result yet in eleventh, just outside the top ten.
Things looked set for further improvement in race three but early on in the race she was forced onto the grass at the old hairpin. This caused grass to fill the radiator ducts and Louise was forced to return to the pits so the team could put things right. She re-joined but she was well behind the rest of the field. She continued to push on though and set some impressive lap times on the way to sixteenth place. Not where she wanted to be but an excellent recovery in the circumstances.
Louise was happy with her weekend;
“I feel it’s been a positive weekend,” she said. “I’ve shown a step forward in my pace again on track and as a team, we’ve been able to increase our knowledge of working with the car. We knew after race one that we had some work to do on set-up, but we made some changes for race two and to finish in P11 was a good result. We were getting stronger as the race went on and if things had come together a little earlier, then I think we could certainly have finished inside the top ten.
“It was a bit disappointing that we couldn’t build on that pace in race three, but when I saw a car spinning in front of me I had no option but to take to the grass. I thought I’d got away with it at first but after the Safety Car period, the temperatures started to rise and I had to pit to have grass removed from the radiator.
Despite that, the pace was strong again and I feel confident that we can continue to make progress when we go to Thruxton”
Ollie managed three finishes from his debut weekend with a best position of fourteenth. The two Richardson racing team mates will be an even bigger help to each other as Thruxton is a circuit where you benefit having a team mate to slipstream with when setting fast laps in qualifying.
Thruxton is on the ninth and tenth of May so check back after then to see how Louise does or alternatively head to the Thruxton website to buy tickets and then you can support her in person! By Marc Waller
