Friday was the ‘OFFICIAL TEST’ at the sunny Brands Hatch race circuit, and with Grants last visit to the circuit being 2 years ago he knew he would have some work to do. Grant went into practise knowing he had to start from scratch, making sure his gearing was somewhere near ok. This would be the only time he would be able to make sure everything was okay before qualifying. Grant got to grips with the circuit really well and the bike was working great. The Indy circuit being very small meant the times where really close. At the end of the session Grant had already beaten his previous best time which put him 15th overall, 0.4 of a second under his best time and only 0.7 off the pole time set.
Q1 was the following day and this was on the GP Circuit. This was the first time Grant had been on the GP circuit for a long time and it took him a little longer to get used to the track. Grant had to make sure his gearing was working to the best of its ability. Half way through the session Grant came into the pits to make some modifications to the suspension, he did this and went back out. He felt happier with his suspension and also improved his time. Finishing a very respectable 15th, which was good considering Grant was playing catch-up a little especially with circuit knowledge.
Q2 was later on in the day and Grant was very keen to improve his position so he opted to change the gearing. Grant found the gearing a lot to deal with and was finding the bike difficult to control. Throughout the session Grant realised this and decided to pit, but unfortunately he didn’t have enough time in the session to change the gearing. This led to Grant dropping down to 23rd. He was not happy with himself as he felt he could and should have done a lot better, but felt the gearing was restricting him. Grant was now 2.2 seconds off pole.
Warm-up was early in the morning of race day. As Grant changed his gearing the night before he wanted to try this during the 8 minutes. At the end of warm-up Grant was still not happy, so he decided to go back to the gearing he started with but adapted it a little for the race.
The race was here and with Grant starting on row 6 he was very hyped up for the start of the race. Grant got a very good start and managed to jump up through the pack and at the end of the first lap he had already worked his way up to 15th. On the 4th lap the safety car was deployed due to a crash. This was out for 2 laps and Grant knew this would be his only chance to continue working his way to the front. The safety car went in and everyone was rushing into the first corner, trying to catch each other out and make a pass. Fortunately for Grant a rider in front of him rushed up the inside of another rider forcing them wide. This gave Grant an opportunity to pass, gaining a good amount of places. Grant knew he had to make this move stick and keep pushing on. Grant felt very comfortable throughout the race, and showing his incredible pace he managed to pull a gap behind him. He continued to work his way up to a battle for 6th position. This was excellent considering his qualifying position. With the race nearly over Grant made the pass onto the start finish straight and with 1 lap to go he knew he had to make it a good last lap. Unfortunately, after all he did the rider passed him with half a lap to go down the back straight due to pure speed. Grant could only attempt to pass going into the last corner. With the inside protected he went straight around the outside of the rider in front, into 6th position but got re-passed to the finish line, only losing out by half a bikes length.
Grant scored 9 points in the race, lifting him to 11th in the championship. Altogether this was a very encouraging weekend for Grant & the team.
A massive thank-you to all the support Grant and the team had over the weekend.
Grant would especially like to thank his Mum, Dad, Sister, Girlfriend Laura & mechanic ‘Sam’ for all their help over the weekend.
We would also like the thank Mark, Andy, Stephen, Roy and Alan for coming along to support Team Grant Whitaker Racing.
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