Qualifying:
Heavy rain overnight lead to tricky conditions for Saturday qualifying. Ginetta Juniors were first on to a wet track and Toms pace was good. With 4 mins to go he was lying 7th and continuing to improve. However the track started to dry quickly and Tom felt the car was unstable through Craners. The team elected to leave Tom out rather than bring him in and put a dry set up on the car (due to time remaining). Unfortunately a car in front lost its rear bumper in the chicane which lead to several drivers including Tom having to take evasive action on to the grass. This effectively ended qualifying and Tom finished the session in 14th .
Race 1 was dry but with black clouds threatening rain . Tom was P14 and got a good start gaining 3 places by the first corner. Tom was trying to find a way through the traffic in front and then it started raining followed by hail. Tom coped well with the tricky conditions even with his limited experience and battled with his team mate before finishing 14th .
Race 2
For the second race of the day Tom started P14 and the track was dry with no rain forecast. Tom got another good start and worked his way up to 7th place by the end of lap 7. Coming into Redgate Tom went for a move for 5th. Unfortunately there was contact from behind which forced Tom to spin and although he recovered he was off the back and finished a disappointing 16th .
Race 3
Tom started 16th for the final race of the weekend. Tom gained a couple of places straight away and showing great pace started to pick off drivers in front of him. Tom caught a group of 3 ahead of him and coming down into Redgate, Tom got on the inside aiming for 10th place. Unfortunately under braking was hit from behind and pushed wide , he did well to hold the car and managed to continue but was in 16th place . Tom showed great pace and consistency and clawed back a gap of 4 seconds to the pack to finish 15th and 0.1 seconds off a group of 4 cars.
Tom commented on the weekend “It was a dream come true, to be racing at Donington Park and I was hopeful of giving my sponsors and home supporters a great result, I was also extremely privileged to feature on a full page in the BTCC official programme.
I had great pace and was P5 in official testing and felt positive for the weekend. After a great drive up to 5th in race 2, it was disappointing to be hit off the track, and to then finish way down the field. I really enjoyed racing here in front of my sponsors and home crowd, and have taken a lot of positives away from the weekend.”
TomWoodRacing 