The Ginetta Junior Championship showed the millions of television viewers and 30,000 trackside spectators that Emily is now well on her way, with a fabulously exciting, hard fought drive on the UK’s fastest race track.
Starting from fifteenth as her qualifying hadn’t gone to plan, she knew she had a lot of work to do to make up ground in the aggressively competitive Ginetta Junior Championship but felt confident she had the pace to run in the top eight. Emily said, “Qualifying wasn’t great, my team mate and I didn’t get the run we were trying for and mistakes were made, but we’ll practice working together for the next round. That said, I’m confident I have the pace to run much further up the field with the pace I’ve shown in Free Practice.”
Having changed her mindset from wanting podiums and putting additional pressure on herself, to adopting the attitude of being the best she personally can be, she found the resilience to overcome the bad qualifying and get straight on with her race. “The race itself was mostly uneventful, I’m pleased to say. There was a pack of six of us all fighting for position, swapping places almost every lap. Slipstream here at Thruxton plays a big part in overtaking so you’re under constant attack from behind even when you’re attacking those in front, so there’s no rest, physically or mentally, as you’re constantly planning and re-planning your strategy. Even with the fighting, I managed to get into eleventh place and close down on the two drivers now directly ahead of me but I ran out of time to get in to a battle with them” Emily said proudly.
Race two, Emily had got up to eleventh by turn three but contact with another car plus an aggressive manoeuvre from another driver caused two of them to spin, leaving Emily in last place. With the help from a safety car delay, she managed to get back to the pack but the damage to her front left corner proved to be more compromising than she first thought. The headlight cluster had been damaged and dropped in between the front tyre and the inside of the bonnet housing, causing the car to not have the straight-line speed or the turning ability into the left handers so her times were almost two seconds off those in her previous race. Emily recalled, “I realised part way through the race that there was obviously more damage than I’d originally thought as I couldn’t turn the car through the Chicane or at the Complex, so I lost a lot of time in those places and then again around the high speed bits too, I just had to hang on to what I had a get the best out of it that I could. Points are all important, so I stayed out there and did my best with what I had and brought it home in 14th place; not too bad I guess. My driving this weekend has given me such a boost in confidence as it’s come on so much. This can be a daunting track and I showed I can run the pace needed to be competitive and my data backs that up too. For me though, I’m happiest with my thought process, as this weekend has proven that with the right mindset, the team and a better understanding of qualifying, we can really start to build from here on.”
Next round at Oulton Park in Cheshire on 9/10th June.
“Oulton Park is next and I’m looking forward to it. I’ve had a few tests there and it should be a better weekend for me.”
