Emily Linscott continued her 2018 season in the Ginetta Junior championship as it reached the second meeting at Donington Park.
Her Corby based team, Richardson racing were running four cars at the event and everyone was feeling confident as they arrived at the circuit on the Leicestershire/Derbyshire border.
Pre event testing was held on the Thursday this time and all the team’s drivers including Linscott felt happy with how things went.
Qualifying was held on Saturday in very tricky wet conditions. Linscott took thirteenth, a personal best but she wasn’t fully happy as she had been hoping for a top ten. It was still a strong performance from a driver with possibly the least experience of the whole grid.
The opening race was part the way through Saturday and the track was still damp and slippery. Emily got a great start but found herself squeezed and knocked sideways as she entered the first corner. Her excellent natural car control came to the rescue though and she straightened the car up without losing any places. As she headed down the hill she started to move further up the field only to come across a spinning car at the old hairpin. She tried to avoid the incident but ended up spinning too and went straight off into the deep gravel trap. Race one was over for her.
Race two started even better than the first as Linscott got a storming start and then an incredible opening lap saw her jump up into the top ten overall. But then a rival made contact on lap two sending her off the circuit and losing a lot of valuable time. But, as usual, Linscott didn’t give up and put on a charge for the rest of the race. Getting quicker all the time, she fought her way back up to fifteenth place by the finish.
Race three saw another good start although she then lost one of the car’s dummy headlights in the first corner. The damage slowed the car slightly although she still fought her way up to thirteenth. But by now the issues with her car worsened as the bonnet started lifting. Linscott drove around the problem but a spin part way through the race dropped her down the order once more after she tried a bit too hard on her fight back. She recovered but ended the race in a disappointing (for her) eighteenth position. Linscott reflected on her weekend;
“It has been a tough weekend for me but unfortunately they happen sometimes and there isn’t anything I can do to change it. After the incident in race one, I was hoping for a better time in race two but after a good start, I was forced onto the grass and it was hard to recover in the wet conditions.”
She continued;
“In race three I have to hold my hands up that I just carried a bit too much speed into a corner whilst fighting for position and had a spin that cost me time. It’s not how I wanted things to go, but I’ll put this one behind me and stay positive going to Thruxton for the next round.”
Thruxton takes place on the nineteenth and twentieth of May and Emily Linscott will be looking to take her best result of her career so far as she pushes on in her determination to run at the very front of the field. By Marc Waller
