Emily Linscott makes her car racing debut in a Ginetta

Emily Linscott makes her car racing debut in a Ginetta

Emily Linscott makes her car racing debut in a Ginetta Almost a year to the day since she started racing in karts, Emily Linscott headed to Rockingham to make her car racing debut in the Simpson Race products Ginetta Junior championship with Elite Motorsport supporting the BTCC meeting.

With just the year of karting behind her, Linscott was the least experienced of all the drivers lining up on the grid at the Northamptonshire circuit although she has been taking the opportunity to test the Junior car during 2017 on the build up to her debut.

Unfortunately for Linscott, one of her final tests on the Thursday before the weekend ended in disaster when a problem saw her make heavy contact with the wall. Linscott was fine but the same couldn’t be said for the car and it would need to be replaced with a loan car from Ginetta for the weekend. An accident like this may have put some drivers off, but Linscott is very determined and so after some further testing on Friday, Saturday saw her take to the track for qualifying.

Unsurprisingly, with her limited experience and confidence knocking accident, she wasn’t among the fastest as the initial lap time popped onto the timing screen. Unfortunately for Linscott, it was soon clear that the early lap times would be quicker so despite gaining confidence throughout the session, she was left in nineteenth on the grid. Her testing times from the previous day would have put her much higher up the field so she knew the speed was there if she could avoid the almost inevitable trouble that there would be on the first lap.

The first two races of the weekend would both be later on Saturday with the third and final race on Sunday. Linscott was excited and hopeful at what lay ahead on her debut. She had barely done any racing starts before, just a few in testing so unsurprisingly when the lights went out her start wasn’t the quickest. Despite this she stayed with the pack around the banking and into the Deene Hairpin.
As expected there was contact further up the field into the hairpin so Linscott took the inside line to stay out of their way and they collided out towards the other side of the track. Linscott looked set to gain several places on a single corner when suddenly one of the cars involved in the incident speared across the track.

It was out of Linscott’s line of sight and the first she knew about it was as it slammed across into her car, dislodging the bonnet and putting her out of the race. Through absolutely no fault of her own, her debut had lasted just two corners. Worse still, her car had a lot of damage and there wasn’t long before race two. Elite Motorsport though are very quick workers and by the time of race two, the damage was fixed and the car reassembled.

This time, Linscott made a better start and also avoided any incidents on the first lap. In fact she made her first ever overtaking move in a car race as they headed into the Tarzan hairpin. Unfortunately, it soon became clear that all was not well with the car, She was struggling to get it to steer around corners which resulted in her having a half spin at the Deene Hairpin on the next lap.

It was clear that whatever the problem was, it wasn’t something that could be fixed during the race and so rather than waste the race in the pits, Linscott continued to circulate, gaining vital experience. She crossed the line in seventeenth, a very good result given all that had happened and it was a confidence boost that she had finished the race. The third and final race of the weekend would be on Sunday, Linscott would now have the evening and next morning to prepare, while the team at Elite worked on the car to fix the problems that had slowed Emily in the previous race.

By the time Linscott lined up on the grid on Sunday, Elite had got her car back to a raceable state. This time she would be starting from seventeenth. She made her best start yet and found herself ahead of a couple of rivals. She found herself being challenge for position but despite her lack of experience she was already able to drive defensively but fairly to hold them behind.

Unfortunately, on the following lap (Lap four) her car spun, apparently after some contact from one of her rivals. The engine had stopped so Linscott had to reset everything to restart the car. By the time she got going again, the rest of the pack were long gone and well out of reach. She concentrated on lapping as fast as she could for the rest of the race, learning and gaining experience all the time. She crossed the line in eighteenth, another good finish in her third ever race.

Emily fought hard to try and get in front of rivals (Photo by Marc Waller) Emily goes for her first ever car racing overtake (Photo by Marc Waller) Emilys car is taken out at the start of race one (Photo by Marc Waller)

 

 

 

She was greeted by a big group of her fans after the race who congratulated her on an excellent weekend. Despite this being her first ever car race, Linscott already has more support than some of the more experienced drivers including some in the BTCC itself!

She had showed impressive speed over the weekend especially before her testing crash and had learnt a lot. She now heads to Silverstone where she’ll hope to build on her positive start and move up the field.

Emily Linsoctt thanks her sponsors; Vitabiotics, Everyone active, Handpicked Commerical Interiors, Roplet and Dirtyslate Creative studio. She also thanks her family, friends and fans for their support and encouragement over her debut weekend.

Written by