Donington Historic Festival Success 4-5th May 2019
Olly Bryant returned from the 2019 Donington Historic Festival with 2 decent results from the 3 races he competed in.
First up was the 2 hour GT and Sports Car Cup race on Saturday evening sharing the famous AC Cobra GPG 4C with father Grahame. The pair had won this race back in 2017 so were keen for a repeat performance. Unfortunately an electrical issue in qualifying forced them to start dead last in 43rd position. Olly charged away from the start and climbed the order steadily throughout the initial 50 minute stint, taking the lead as showers fell on lap 19. Grahame took over for his stint and dropped to P6 overall and a poorly timed safety car cost them a lap to the leaders. Olly jumped in for the final 45 minutes and began to eat into the deficit. Setting fastest lap after fastest lap, eventually climbing to P3, just 11 seconds behind P2 and under 29 seconds behind the winner. Importantly, the car ran faultlessly for 2 hours which is promising for the rest of the season.
On Sunday morning, sharing gain with Grahame, the pair guided the ex-Think Auto Chevrolet Camaro to the Tony Dron Trophy race honours, backing up their strong 2018 wins at Thruxton and Silverstone.
Next up, driving solo, was the Stirling Moss Trophy race in the Lotus XV. Repeating his 2018 effort, Olly planted the car firmly on pole position. The more powerful Lister of Richard Kent took the lead during the first lap and eventually Olly came out on top after a spirited fight that lasted several laps. Olly ran until just before the pit-window closed at 40 minutes. A slightly slow pit exit initially cost him the lead as Kent charged up the inside into Redgate, but Olly switched back to the inside and managed to retake the lead running down the Craner curves. Olly pushed on, setting fastest lap in the process to build a lead of over 12 seconds until disaster struck on the penultimate tour, the left rear suspension failed, exactly as it had done whilst leading 12 months earlier! This was gutting for Olly and the team as he pulled the wounded car off onto the side of the circuit. A fix is currently being worked on to prevent this failure happening again.
“I’m obviously gutted having been in this exact position last year as well! We’ve had great pace in this car we just need to work on the reliability over 60 minutes of racing. We’ll be back next month at Thruxton where I hope we can repeat our 2018 win”. commented Bryant.
- Categories: 2019 Season, News, Race Wins
