Video: Ginetta Cup Round 5 Recap – Silverstone

Saturday February 13th, The Privateer’s Pitbox facilitated the third and final night of our Ginetta Cup in ACC. Race five was an endurance race around Silverstone, starting in the early morning and finishing at three in the afternoon. How this race went, you’ll see in the video below!

Before we head to the video, you can view my live experience in my Twitch-VOD here. If you want to rewatch the previous recaps first, you can (re)watch recap #1 (Monza), recap #2 (Brands Hatch), recap #3 (Laguna Seca), and recap #4 (Zolder) on their respective articles!

Recap video of Silverstone

Watch the ‘official’ recap in the Youtube video above. Below, I will recollect my point of view of the events unfolding.

Qualifying

Qualifying was wet. Not so wet as Zolder, but very wet nonetheless. Till Vornam was ahead of everyone else. I failed to perform well in qualifying, struggling with my setup. A fifth place meant that I had to do a lot of catching up to Jeroen Jongen if I were to defend my championship lead.

The Race

My start of the race was fairly disappointing, as I had no chance to attack Bonner in front. Instead, I had to defend from Oscar Pink. Fortunately for me, Andreas (Schuster) made a mistake in Maggots & Becketts, meaning I was able to climb to fourth position. Watch the start as it happened.

I was inching closer to Bonner in third position, who was really struggling on his tires. Afterwards, he said his pressures were already 32 PSI during the warm-up lap. This is about 2 PSI over the target of 30.

After just two laps, I was able to overtake him braking into Brooklands. Watch the overtake here.

As the sky turned brighter, I found myself defending from Oscar Pink and Andreas Schuster. My own tires were also about 2 PSI over my target pressures, resulting in a distinct lack of grip through the faster corners.

Oscar tried overtaking me a few times, but each time I was able to defend my position. This fighting meant I had to let Jeroen Jongen disappear into the distance.

This continued for a fair bit of time, until Oscar Pink missed his braking point going into Brooklands. I managed to react just in time, while Oscar also took evasive action meaning I could continue on my way with Andreas in tow, while Oscar lost a lot of time.

Andreas kept me on my toes for twenty more minutes, until it was time to do our pitstops mid race. I absolutely nailed my pitstop, gaining about five seconds on those around me.

When Jeroen Jongen did his pitstop, he came out just ahead of me. With just a gap of one second, I tried to keep up hoping I would be able to attack his second place.

Unfortunately for me, Jeroen had more pace than myself. After four laps I had to let my hopes of winning the championship go.

The rest of the race was fairly uneventful, as I had built up a twenty second gap to Andreas behind. I brought my car home while having a faint hope of Jeroen making a mistake. By the end he had his extended his lead on me by about ten seconds, giving him enough room for an error.

Result & Ginetta Cup Final Standings

This being a double points race meant that Till Vornam earned a whopping 150 points. Jeroen Jongen amalgamated 116 points, whereas I only got 92 points. This meant that my seven point lead going into this race evaporated faster than liquid helium on Mercury.

The final standings (below) show that Jeroen overturned his deficit in a seventeen-point lead. Vornam’s 150 points put him in third, with Bonner and Andreas finishing fourth and fifth.

So, here it is…

I hope you once again enjoyed this video and write-up. If this sounds like something you’d enjoy participating in, feel free to register for our Ginetta Cup (there are still a couple of spots open for registration) and jump in our discord!

For the latest news you can also follow me on twitter @felixdicit, or @the_pitbox.