In the mix as we approach halfway

Well it has been some time since my last entry, apologies to everyone and especially the love:mini team, hopefully better late than never.

A lot's happened with our season since my last post… we’ve had two further rounds at Brands Hatch GP and Silverstone.  As I write this we’re frantically trying to get everything sorted so we can get on our way south for this weekend's MINI Festival at Brands Hatch which I’m sure most (if not all of you) will know about.  I hope that a lot of you will be attending and if you are, please, please, please swing by our garage and say hello… it would be great to meet you. 

A quick summary to bring you up to date… Our strong season has continued and our run of podiums has been very pleasing… 7 podiums out of 9 races so far and we are sitting 2nd in the JCW championship.  Without a doubt the strongest start to a season for us… long may it continue.

Round 2 Brands Hatch GP

What a great weekend this was, we were part of the Blancpain GT round on the Mega GP layout which is stunning to drive.  We had a bit of a slow start to the weekend, finishing 4th in the first race, however, it was a great race with the top 4 literally bumper to bumper for the 20 minute race.

Race 2 was more like it though… a great start through a very messy opening lap which saw quite a lot of carnage, we emerged 2nd albeit with the windscreen covered in oil.  The race calmed down after the opening lap and we brought the car home in 2nd place.

Going into the 3rd race, confidence was high, unfortunately we had power steering failure at the start, first time driving a car with failed power steering and I couldn’t believe how heavy it was.  I expected it to get ‘lighter’ the faster I went (as it would on a car which came without power steering).  However, I quickly realised this wasn’t the case… Not one for quitting I pushed on, hanging onto the pace of the first two for as long as I could.  I was quite comfortably in 3rd until I noticed I was being caught rather quickly by my old teammate Jono Brown who was back for the weekend.  The last few laps he was all over me, I was determined to hang on to 3rd and after a few close shaves the flag was out… a final 3rd place podium to round off the weekend and a great race with Jono - was good to have him back on the grid.

Round 3 Silverstone

I’d only raced at Silverstone once before this year's MINI Challenge round and we didn’t get off to the best of starts.  With some heavy contact from a Gen3 on our outlap in testing, it was nearly game over for the day.  The team did a mega job fixing the car before the end of the last session and we managed to squeeze in a 20 minute shakedown to make sure everything was ok with the car.  It was fortunate the guys did such a quick turnaround on the repair as the shakedown highlighted we had a broken damper too which had appeared to be fine and working after the initial repair.  Not an ideal situation to be in going into qualifying the next again day.

Qualifying and Race 1 were in horrendous conditions, the rain poured and visibility was as good as zero.  We attacked from the first lap and was sitting on pole position in qualifying for most of the session.  We caught a couple of Coopers on our last flying lap and unfortunately this was enough for us to be dropped down the order to 3rd, however, not a disaster considering how badly testing had gone.  Race 1 we got a great start, up into 2nd off the line and challenging for the lead.  We had the pace in the wet and was all over 1st place through the corners, unfortunately lacking their speed in a straight line they were able to keep us behind.  However, we finished the 20 minute race about 0.7seconds behind so that gives an example as to how close a race it was.

Races 2 and 3 on the Sunday were in better conditions, dry races, so out came the slicks.  Race 2 was another close one, the car felt great, and was so hooked up round the corners.  With it being really the first dry run we’d had round Silverstone over the weekend it was very satisfying to have such a good car and we crossed the line 2nd again.

Race 3 ended the weekend off with a 4th place, whilst not ideal, it could have been much worse.  A brief excursion on the frantic opening lap bent something on our steering and part of our arch liner got wrapped up in one of the driveshafts.  This caused a drop in straight line speed and the car wasn’t as sharp through the corners which just took the edge off the performance.  We were stuck right behind 3rd place and managed to make a pass, unfortunately the extra grunt he had and the long straights meant he could just keep us behind him.

All in all, two great meetings… strengthening our position in 2nd, although we need to have a big push now on clawing back some points to the championship leader, with four meetings left we’re almost half way through the season, so this has to be our number one priority.

Now the focus has moved onto the Brands Hatch MINI Festival this weekend… I’ve been involved with this for the past two seasons and it really is a fantastic weekend to be part of.  Usually big crowds and a selection of awesome MINIs, classic and new… it's such a great atmosphere.  Really looking forward to the pit and grid walks, great opportunity to meet like-minded MINI fans and racing enthusiasts alike.  We’ll be based in the garages, so as already mentioned, do come and say hello.  If you’re unsure about going… don’t be… I’d be amazed if you didn’t love it… Hope to see you there.

For more information on Panda Racing and Hamish please visit 

www.PandaRacing.com / www.HamishBrandon.com, ‘like’ the Facebook pages www.Facebook.com/PandaRacing and www.Facebook.com/HamishBrandonRacing or follow @PandaRacingTeam / @HamishB on Twitter.