Bryony King started her second season in the Formula Jedi last weekend. After finishing as high as fourth in her first season, her aim for this year is to make the podium.
She was on track before she even reached Brands Hatch with a session in the Izone simulator to get up to speed.
She had testing first on Friday in three separate sessions. However she found the sessions were full of much slower Formula Ford cars so getting a clear lap was almost impossible. However the time she had spent in the simulator meant she was confident in the pace she could produce even if actually doing that time during the test session was problematic! Despite not getting clear and fast laps she spent lots of time on perfecting her lines and building her confidence in the car actually on track, something which the simulator (however good) can never fully reproduce.
And so it was on to Qualifying on Saturday morning. This was something that she had done a lot of work on, at Izone during the off season and so she felt very confident of setting a fast pace in the session, especially now those Formula Ford cars were out of the way!
Early in the session she set a laptime good enough for third and remained in this spot for most of the session. But just as she looked set for a third place start she was beaten by a thousandth of a second in the closing stages but that still left her in a very creditable fourth place.
Race one was later that day and the start didn’t go to plan. She dropped to sixth and a code 60 flag (similar to the virtual safety car periods in F1) was out for a lot of the race. Once she got going, she found the other cars were lapping at a similar pace making it very hard to find a way past. She crossed the line in sixth, by no means a bad result but she wasn’t happy with it. Hopefully Sunday would see an improvement.
She was confident as she lined up on the grid for the second race, knowing that if she could make a good start she should be able to hold position and then fight for a podium place. She judged it perfectly moving into third which she held during the opening laps. One of the back markers then dropped oil, sending rivals off all over the place, some crashing out.
Bryony kept a cool head, avoided the oil and actually gained a place. She crossed the line in a brilliant scond place, her first ever podium in car racing. In only her second race of the season she had achieved one of her goals.
Bryony was very happy with her first weekend;
“What a great start to the 2017 season. Fourth in qualifying yesterday and then a tough race finishing Sixth had left me dissapointed. But I went into today feeling confident in myself and had a podium finish in a tricky race with oil from another car making the circuit slippery. Thank you to everyone who has supported me this weekend; the whole Formula Jedi team, my parents and supporters and of course my sponsors!”
Bryony’s next race is at Cadwell park on the 6th and 7th May where she will be again pushing hard for more podiums. After her second place at Brands could even a win be possible? Find out in the next report! By Marc Waller
