C1 Endurance Series 2023 – Oulton Park 22nd April 2023

Round 2 of the 2023 C1 Racing club endurance series saw the team head to the wonderfully twisty Cheshire venue of Oulton Park for 3.5hrs of racing action in the always competitive one make grid.

Both cars ready to go for raceday!

A slight change to car crews from Silverstone; #335 would be Crewed once again by Ethian Symonds, but alongside Gary Mitchell, team driver coach, would step in and take up the support driver reign.

#432 Would have American driver Arthur Simondet partnered by new driver to the team Mike Oldknow.

The team headed down for testing the day prior, with a full day planned on the Friday. Testing was a tough day at the office for both cars, with #432 suffering a technical issue, which meant it lost some valuable test time, and #335 piloted by Mike Oldknow having an unfortunate off, thankfully causing only a bent wing, but a knock of confidence none the less.

Reprep was completed after the test, and with both cars now made fit to race again the crew enjoyed a hard earned nights rest.

Race day arrived, but with Mike Oldknow suffering a concussion from the previous days off, he made a very selfless and tough decision to not take the risk and sit out the race day.

The call went out to find a last minute driver to sit alongside Simondet, and thanks to the assistance of the C1 Racing club, Toby Ward volunteered to step in so that the #432 could still compete.

Qualifying came first and both cars headed out to set their laps. At the end of proceedings Ethian Symonds would set the time for #335, sitting the car P20 on the grid. #432 would see Arthur Simondet place the car in P28. Both cars would be happy, and confident that with further circuit learning more time could be found.

Race

The race consisted of a 3.5hr race, with 3 mandatory driver change pitstops.

The race would be a hard fought affair. #335 set out with Ethian symonds taking the opening stint and after a big push from lights out he managed to gain several positions. Unfortunately some contact with the Emax Motorsport car saw a forced early stop to repair damage, costing half a lap of time. Ethian then completed his stint, driving a mature, clean and consistently quick second half, to see the car come in for the driver change in a well recovered position. After some fuel, Gary Mitchell set out and pushed hard from the off, and piloted the car home to see the crew take P14.

Arthur Simondet in the Zone!

#432 Would have Arthur Simondet take the opening honours, and a steady and clean drive saw a no issues run for the car. At the fuel stop Toby took over and again a no risk approach saw other struggle around him. The crew did well to bring the car home P20, a great improvement on their qualifying position and pleasing for the team after the test day issues.

The team now look forward to the big one – Silverstone 24hrs next month!