For the last race of 2016 we wanted to end on a high, without me making bad setup calls and costing Theo the result in the final when it counted. And we didn’t do too badly at all with Theo walking away with a 5th place trophy.
With almost impossible weather conditions during Saturday, we still managed to do some great testing and confirmed that we had found that elusive setup that works on inters for a drying track. So, even though practice was cut short due to ever-increasing fog, we went into raceday feeling very confident…
We were almost off to the perfect start in qualifying, with Theo and team mate Oliver Bearman heading towards a 1-2, only for them both to catch slower traffic and be held up for the last couple of laps. Still, this allowed team mate Jack Clements to put it on Pole, with Theo in 6th. The next heat, starting from 6th, Theo got held up behind someone for too long and hence got jumped by others in the process, but he finished where he started in 6th.
For the pre-final, Theo got off to a great start and was soon up to 4th, and then 3rd. With 4 laps to go, Theo got into 2nd place and pushed team mate Oliver away for them to finish a strong 1-2. with Theo setting fastest lap of the race.
Starting in 2nd for the final, with team mate Oliver ahead, the boys got off to a fantastic start and it was looking like they’d finish the year off with a fantastic result for themselves and the team. However, Theo was unable to push Oliver enough to break away as he had done in the pre-final, and it became a 3-way fight for most of the race, until their fighting eventually allowed the pack behind to close in. In the closing stages, Theo even dropped down to 7th at one point, recovered back to 4th, but then dropped to 5th before the line. Still, he yet again set the fastest lap of the race and walked away with a trophy.
So, overall a very positive year for Theo, winning 33 trophies all year. Our main mission going in to 2017 is to convert all these fastest laps into race wins!!
Thanks to everyone that has helped this year, in particular Lewis, Jordan and Billy at Virtus, and James, Dan and Grant at ZipKart. You guys have been fantastic!
Thanks too to Paul Babington for these great photos, as well as many others throughout the year.
There are several others we would like to thank – you know who you guys are! And not forgetting all our team mates!
Anyway, onwards and upwards for 2017. We mean business…