Lydia Walmsley recently headed to Donington Park to start her new racing season as she enters senior racing for the first time.
This season she will be racing in the Mini Challenge Cooper Pro Class in a car built by her small family team. She had a small amount of testing before the weekend but this would be her first chance to actually compete.
Qualifying was held at the same time as the Cooper S class which has separate races but ran together to set the grids. This meant that Lydia had a really difficult job to find a clear lap with thirty eight cars all circulating at once. Whenever she looked like she was on a good lap, she’d catch up with another car once more, forcing her to back off and losing huge amounts of time. This left her in thirteenth in class a good grid spot for her first ever race but it was worked out that if she had achieved a clear lap, she would have been in the top ten.
This meant she was confident of making up places in both of the day’s two races. As race one got underway she made a great start and soon had fought her way up to a strong ninth place. She looked set to close on the battle ahead until a rival made a late lunge from behind. It resulted in him making contact with Lydia sending her wide letting a second rival through. She kept control though and held on to eleventh at the flag.
She was determined to get an even better result in race two. Her start was once again strong and she fought her way through the pack once again. She was up to eighth place with two laps to go but by now they were lapping the slowest of the Am class cars and one got in her way at the chicane, the time loss was only brief but with rivals close by, she dropped down to tenth place and finished the race there just over a lap later. A top ten was a strong end to her debut weekend. Lydia wasn’t fully content with this but happy to have completed the weekend;
“I had lots of close battles, and moved up in both races. I was up to 9th in race one before being pushed wide, losing two spots. And I was progressing well in race two, up to eighth before I became boxed in by a back marker on the chicane on the penultimate lap! However, I know I can learn from this. Overall, it certainly wasn’t a dream start to the season but am happy to have moved forwards in both races. I’m Looking forward to Snetterton as this is my home track. Thanks to my amazing sponsors for all their amazing help so far – Morris Lubricants, Whip Street Motors, Derek Hales New Homes in Norfolk, M. G. Walmsley and Son and A & D Motors.” By Marc Waller
