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Forza Silverstone – Double wins for Lockie in Italy’s finest machinery

April 15, 2014 by James Reay in BEC
Calum Lockie in Ferrari 458 Cup Car

Calum Lockie in Ferrari 458 Cup Car

Calum Lockie on Britcars first round at Silverstone – “I had one of those rare and great week ends at Silverstone, starting with testing on the International circuit in David Mason’s Ferrari 458 for the Britcar opener. We had a few new things to try and these worked out well leaving us confident for the 2 x 90 minute races.

A packed schedule on Saturday saw a 30 minute warm up in which we were fastest overall. Then on to first qualifying for a class pole and 4th overall.

The first race went well with David starting and keeping everything ship shape for me to take over just before half distance. I got going and after a frantic stint, which netted us fastest lap, we came home a good second to kick off our championship challenge.

Only a short time later second qualifying was upon us. This gave us our second class pole of the day and 4th overall on the grid. This time I started the race, making my way into second place by Village corner. Then followed a full on stint of about 35 laps holding off the GT3 Ginetta. I had to work hard for that.

Then came a message from the team. David was unwell and had decided to leave me in the car for the rest of the race. Pit stop done, I gave it all, to secure our first class win of the year, and leave us leading the class points as our main competitors were excluded.

An excellent start to the Britcar campaign. Many thanks to David and to FF Corse who ran a perfect car.

With over 4 hours of tracktime, hard but clean racing and a varied grid in every class it was a very good event from Britcar.

With Saturday’s excitements over, a very gentle celebration was in order as I was due to race Sean and Laura Danaher’s 1938 Maserati 6CM Grand Prix car on the National circuit on Sunday. This was part of the incredible VSCC Spring Start Meeting. It’s a huge event with so many classes of racing, a packed paddock and Castrol R in the air the whole time. Well worth a visit if you haven’t been to it.

I had managed a quick few laps earlier in the week end to set an unofficial Maserati 6CM lap record. Qualifying was upon us and I went out ahead of the massed ranks of ERAs which are very quick and have several extremely experience and fast drivers. Giving it plenty saw my best ever time but I reckoned it was not good enough. Then the car started to misfire (my fault as I had let the revs go too low on a cool down lap and flooded the engine). Into the pits and by the time I had stopped it had cleared so off I went again.

Feeling a little under pressure I got going and posted my fastest time which put me on P2 ahead of 8 ERAs! I was over the moon and looking forward to the race.

Later we heard that the car on pole had been withdrawn elevating me to my first ever GP pole. Now the pressure was really on as the ERAs make demon starts. However, when the light went out I was first away and into Copse. Powering down the Wellington straight I scanned the mirrors and saw that I was comfortably ahead. After that I concentrated on opening a gap and ended up winning by 28 seconds and posting fastest lap along the way.

A huge thank you to Sean and Laura for putting me in the car and Casper and Sam for all their fettling work.

What a week end and the bar has been set high…oh boy!!”

 

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