Louise Richardson and Jessica Hawkins both made the long trip up to Knockhill in Scotland recently to compete in the latest rounds of the MSA Formula championship.
Racing with their respective teams, Richardson Racing and Falcon Motorsport, both drivers were hoping for good weekends from different starting points. Louise Richardson was trying to bounce back from a disappointing meeting at Snetterton which had come after her first podium the meeting before at Croft in Yorkshire. Jessica Hawkins is still learning and this would be her first visit to the undulating circuit near Dunfermline, she has been progressing and moving forward every meeting since joining the championship at Oulton Park so she hoped this weekend would continue to build on that progress.
They both tested on Friday and were looking forward to a successful weekend. Come qualifying though things didn’t go quite as well as they hoped, Louise in fourteenth and Jessica in sixteenth. Both knew they could move forward in the race though, the first one being held later on Saturday.
As the lights went out both got a great start, Louise heading for the top ten and Jessica joined the battle for eleventh just outside the top ten. Louise got all the way up to eighth by the end which would have got her pole on the reverse grid race when a rival ran into the side of her car spinning her off. She actually recovered just as Jessica came round the hairpin with the two having a drag race to the line. Jessica crossed just ahead but she was already a lap ahead anyway due to the amount of time Louise lost while she was stationary. Jessica was twelfth just a few seconds out of the top ten but Louise was fifteenth after her shunt.
Onto race two and both drivers again got excellent stars, Jessica looked determined as they headed into the first corner down the steep hill but disaster struck as she was hit from behind, launching the car into the air and spinning it off the track. The rear suspension was completely broken and so Jessica was out. Fortunately the only damage was to the car and she was fine.
Louise had to avoid the crash which lost her time. She fought back up to eleventh by the end only for a rival to force her onto the grass on the final lap, damaging her wing and dropping her to twelfth.
Things weren’t really going either of the driver’s way, could race three go any better?
Jessica’s car had only just been rebuilt in time after the damage sustained in the shunt in the previous race. As the lights went out, they both again got a great start, Louise moved up to eleventh only for disaster to strike again when a move at the hairpin saw her off the track. She fought back however, determined to somehow get a good result out of the weekend. By the final lap she had managed it, with a ninth place finish. It wasn’t where she was at Croft but with the luck she’s had since, ninth was a great result. Jessica’s race went almost the opposite way. After a great start she had been fighting for positions around the top ten but her clutch started slipping. Her car lost all performance and she dragged it home in fourteenth.
It hadn’t gone to plan for either of them. Louise tried to be positive;
“It’s been a bit of an up and down weekend, and the results don’t really reflect the pace in the car,” she said. “The first race was going well and we looked on for a top eight finish until the incident and then in race two, we were in the wrong place at the wrong time when it kicked off ahead.
“In race three, I was forced off the circuit at the hairpin but I came back well and the car felt brilliant towards the end. We just need to work on it so I get that feeling from the start of the weekend.
“It’s a little bit frustrating that we didn’t get the results that our pace deserved, and had it not been for the incident in race one, we’d have been at the front for race two with the reverse grid and things could have been very different. That’s all a case of ‘ifs and buts’ though, so we’ll take the positives from here and come out fighting at Rockingham.”
Jessica summed up her disappointing trip to Scotland with this;
“The drive home always feels that much longer when you’re mega disappointed with the weekend.”
Both drivers had driven well but luck just hadn’t been on their side. With the next rounds at Rockingham coming just two weeks after the Scottish rounds there isn’t long before they can both try again. By Marc Waller
