The Season – My First Year as a Racing Driver
I arrived at my first ever grid start which you really cannot train for at Donnington Park back in April 2021.
I started a long way back on the grid behind the Class 1 and Class 2 cars, the red light came on much quicker than I had anticipated meaning I was a bit slow off the start. I was glad to have got around the first few corners safely settling into a nice rhythm to complete a solid first race.
I finished a credible 5th in the Boxster Cup first round even after navigating a driver spinning in circles on the notorious Craner Curves. When faced with that situation for the first time I decided to aim for Vikram like a bullseye on a dartboard, he kindly pirouetted off the track to allow me to pass safely at 110mph.
I know exactly how Vikram felt because we had both made the same mistake, every part of your being tells you to lift off the throttle but if you do the weight comes off your back wheels and the car just let’s go, then off you go!
The Exhilaration After a Race
The exhilaration after a race was unlike anything I’d experienced before, and I’ve done a fair few high-level sports in my life. I can only imagine this is the feeling you get from jumping out of a plane with huge euphoria that you made it to the ground alive, you get out of your car totally stoked!
After learning to concentrate harder for the red lights, I took a step up to finish 4th in my second race at the iconic Brands Hatch Grand Prix and in front of my sponsors MD from United Washrooms, Vicki Crawte, who was attending her first-ever race. Since that day she and her family have attended all the races and have fallen in love with Porsche racing (her words not mine).
Brands Hatch GP is the original home of the British Grand Prix where all the greats have raced, such as Sterling Moss. With its high-speed undulating track heading out into the countryside what’s not to love, it has to be one of my favorite tracks!
Brands Hatch GP race
During the Brands GP race, I was behind an enormous head-on crash where a car had spun into another car on the fastest part of the circuit. Thankfully both drivers walked away unscathed. I had no choice but to drive through the scattered car parts strewn across the circuit at 120mph, it was a split-second decision to aim for the smallest item, which was a headlight and ended up jammed under my car, the race was then red-flagged and stopped.
We were held back on the grid ahead of a standing start leaving just two flying laps to finish the race. The pressure was immense! With headlight still firmly attached under my car I blasted off the start and shot from 5th to 4th, the tyres were cold and losing grip, it was like survival, with Steve Shore breathing down my neck corner after corner, defending while trying to keep hold of a car sliding all over the place but at last, the chequered flag appeared and 4th place had arrived.
Crashes and bumps
This year I have encountered more crashes, bumps and rubs than I could have ever imagined and have decided that being inside a Porsche is the safest place to be. The engine of a Porsche is in the back of the car offering a perfect front crumple zone compared to most road cars. In addition, the safety devices of the 5-point harness and the ‘Hans’ frontal head restraint system virtually eliminate any chance of whiplash and internal injuries at high speed.
Mechanical failure is a fact of life in motorsports although very much minimised with a superb team like PARR, at Oulton Park my clutch gave out and I did well to finish the race. I had so much smoke inside the cockpit I had to drop the windows so I could breathe. On such an undulating track the lack of power had to be managed using different gears than normal.
Everything was being thrown at me it seemed as I thrilled the spectators with plumbs of smoke following my car. I finished 5th which was pretty good under the circumstances, and I was pleased with the fact that I finished at all.
It was amazing to race the full Silverstone GP circuit but also bittersweet as I had great pace in practice and went straight into 3rd for the first few laps but my racecraft let me down and I finished 5th again. Now it was time to work really hard on my race craft!
Festival of Porsche event in September
The pinnacle of the year could not have been better timed and came at the prestigious Festival of Porsche in front of 20,000 spectators on a hot September day with the largest grid of 37 cars of mixed power and speed levels.
Starting 3rd on the grid it was my highest grid position of the year, I nailed the start perfectly again and to my surprise shot into the lead of my class. I settled back into a firm 3rd spot. All was well until I hit oil and flew off the track throwing me back into 6th.
This happened during lap 5 but with my blood up and a calm head I overtook the three drivers in front within two laps so I was back into 3rd – and stayed there all the way to the finish. Pete’s racecraft had arrived! I was whooping inside my car, I couldn’t believe it!
So, there I was up on the Brands Hatch Podium with my Pirelli cap on, a huge trophy in my hand, waving to the crowd… How cool is this I thought, my life had just hit an all-time high!
The Last Race of The Season
The weather forecast for the last race of the year at Snetterton was horrendous, luckily race one was dry, but it was a disaster for me.
I positioned my car too far to the right of my starting box and got a drive-through 10-second penalty, then I had a gearbox problem which fired me off the track during the first lap, and then I and several other cars came off the track due to oil two laps later.
When I served my penalty in the pits, I said to the team that I would use the remaining race time wisely and practice my wet lines for race 2 which was forecast to be mega wet. In fact, it turned out to be the worst weather I had trained or raced in and my first time I would have to race using wet tyres.
I got another solid start which saw me firmly in 3rd again and rather than pushing through the three class 2 cars in front of me to challenge for 2nd I decided to go for a sensible safe shot in the terrible conditions especially as one of the class 2 cars in front had come off the track three times and re-joined the circuit each time and I didn’t fancy getting collected by him.
The spray and vision were terrible, all I could see was a ball of spray in front of me, but my wet training with Nick Arnold over the past 2 years paid off and I finished 3rd with no sight of any cars behind me. I was so pleased to get a second podium in my first year proving that Brands Hatch was not a flash in the pan, and I could race as well in the wet as the dry.
Written by: Pete Evans
