RACE REPORT: BROWN BROTHERS® Sponsored BTCC driver Aiden Moffat at Thruxton
9/05/16
Brown Brothers sponsored driver Aiden Moffat shows another strong performance at a hot and sunny Thruxton.
Practice
Taking the positives from Donnington Park, Aiden was hopeful for a successful race weekend at Thruxton. During practice Aiden got familiar with the twisty fast flowing circuit, and was hopeful to make an impact in qualifying.
Qualifying
The main qualifying session began late afternoon and Aiden was confident of setting a quick time, as were most of the other teams. During first part of qualifying, the very quick Tom Ingram set the fastest lap with a stunning 1:16.161, proving a tuff time to beat. Second part of qualifying was where the action began as Aiden’s first sector was half a second faster than Ingrams best time. Continuing the pace, Aiden went through sectors two and three which saw him grab a blistering time of 1:16.194, qualifying him in p2 and three hundreds of a tenth off pole. Aiden started Race 1 from the top of the grid.
Race Day
At the start of Race 1 the usual scrum and argy-bargy through the first corner resulted in Aiden losing two or three places setting off from P2, and this may have damaged the front left tyre. With his head focused on the race he was soon back in second place, now behind the sister-car Mercedes of Adam Morgan. The two Mercedes were leading comfortably when it became Aiden’s turn for bad luck with tyres. A massive blowout on the front left and Aiden had to limp back to the pits, to retire.
But tyres were now popping all over the track, and this resulted in a massive incident just in front of the pit entrance that resulted in the race being red-flagged and thus stopped. The race series tyres are supplied by Dunlop and their representative blamed the hot track conditions. But with so many tyres failing in such catastrophic manner, the organisers were in fear for the drivers’ safety, so the subsequent two races would be limited to just 12 laps, rather than the normal 16.
In Race 2, Aiden started P22 and made his way to P16. Channelling the fighting energy from races 1 and two the last race Aiden hoped to make the top ten Unfortunately Aiden was hit once again, returning to the pits for a tyre change. The pit stop cost his time and with it being on lap 12 he would rejoin the track with little chance of a top-ten finish. But as usual he gave it his best, and was rewarded with fastest lap of the race, so he went out fighting.
Aiden has shown strong pace in the past 3 races, BROWN BORTHERs wishes Aiden a good result for Oulton Park on the 5th June.
