Louise Richardson headed to Thruxton in Hampshire last weekend to take part in the latest rounds of the MSA Formula series with Richardson Racing, her family run team.
She knew that the weekend might be tough as they had to miss the pre event testing held the previous month. This meant the Saturday morning qualifying session would be the first time that Louise would drive a single seater on the track, having missed the rounds last season when she raced a Formula Ford.
Understandably, the lack of track time meant she wasn’t as high up the grid as she might otherwise hope and she qualified in nineteenth place but she was only 2.5 seconds off the front with plenty of time left in the car to find.
She got a great start for race one and her lap times were quicker than her qualifying pace as she learned the circuit and the secrets of going quick. The fast lap times saw her climb to twelfth place by the end.
Race two initially went even better and she fought her way up to tenth but she slipped back to twelfth by the end. This time her best lap was only three tenths slower than the winner, Lando Norris. She was also only ten seconds behind the leader.
For race three, again she started from nineteenth and battled her way forward. She passed several cars on her way to her third twelfth place finish of the year Louise’s pace again improved in her third weekend of the year and she heads to Oulton Park in Cheshire in June feeling more confident than ever. The event on the 6th and 7th of June should see Louise break into the top ten for the first time.
Louise commented on her positive and consistent weekend;
“I feel we’ve taken another step forward this weekend, but Thruxton was always going to be a challenging event for us after missing the pre-event test a few weeks ago,” she said. “It meant we had to go straight into qualifying with no previous running and while that meant I was towards the back of the grid, I was happy with my pace and it gave me a platform to move forwards.
“Overall, I’m happy with the progress I made in terms of my pace and it was good to be able to fight with the guys in the midfield in each of the races. What I now need to work on is boosting my confidence in the car and what it can do as my speed is good; I just need to better my race craft
“When you consider we’ve been going from race to race so far this season without the benefit of the testing that other teams have had, I think we can be pleased with the weekend and can aim to push forwards again next time out at Oulton Park.” By Marc Waller
