Colin Queen: Perfect weather, fierce racing and a podium!
The BRSCC National Formula Ford season opener at Silverstone was exciting! The weather was perfect and the racing fierce. On Friday, we had a solid test to setup the cars and learn the 1.85 mile International Circuit, which was new to me. I got up to speed quickly and was consistently at the top of the time sheets.
Rolling into a sunny, cool Saturday morning, I was ready to get after it. The track conditions were optimal for a quick time. Oldfield’s Lucas Romanek and I swapped purple laps for the first half of the session followed by BM Racing’s Rory Smith and Kevin Mills Racing’s Jordan Dempsey placing me in 4th position on the grid.
I had a great start in Race 1 with some good battles for podium positions. Our top 5 pack broke away from the field on lap 4 utilizing the slipstream. The yellow came out on lap 10 for an incident, which brought out the safety car. Jordan Dempsey bunched us up and brought us to the green slowly prior to the restart. I was in fifth position with BM’s Jamie Sharp right on my tail and continued my attack with 3 laps to go. Jordan checked out and it was Rory, Jamie, Tom, Lucas and me fighting hard all the way to the stripe where I ultimately finished in 4th position.
You can watch Race 1 here >> https://youtu.be/9_ortApZopo?t=2143
On Sunday, Race Two was, as Formula Scout said, "a Titanic Battle between Tom Mills and me". I had a decent start in fourth position and slotted behind Tom going into turn three. As I was attempting a pass on the inside, I was hit from behind by another driver and my car sustained a bit of damage to the right rear suspension. I dropped into sixth and began my march to the leaders. I was on the edge of every lap hunting for that all important slipstream, which enabled me to record the second fastest lap of the race. Rory and I worked together to hunt down the Mills team. Once behind Tom, the three of us swapped positions lap after lap. Ultimately, it was Tom and me fighting it out to the finish. I enjoyed the hard racing and my first National FF1600 podium!
You can watch Race 2 here >> https://youtu.be/cVSY86hs09E?t=2521
This weekend was a solid start to the season with some valuable championship points. We have the speed to put it on the top step and I will work hard to get us that win. If you've never seen a Formula Ford race, by all means, do yourself a favour and give it a watch. This series has one the deepest talent pools of the category and I'm so thankful to be able to compete in it.
Big thanks to Andy and the team at Ammonite for all their hard work and support. We are off to Scotland in a few weeks for Knockhill. It should be another barn burner.
- Colin Queen