Chris and Mika ventured to the scintillating area of Corby on the 17th-19th June to take on what was a new track for them; Rockingham. It was the usual scenario with the pairing having testing on Friday the 17th with driver coach Michael Bentwood to give them some experience of the course. Both drivers were very vocal of their opinions of the course, mostly negative, but both made over 20 seconds (!) improvement on their lap times throughout the day.

With Mika having to miss the two Saturday sprint races to go and watch some polo (yes you read that right, he swapped car racing for polo) it was down to Chris to hold down the fort and take on both races. The first sprint race was just a bit disappointing, with Chris not being able to hold pace with the other cars and the team being at the back of the race again. It was clear once the driver got out the car that he was unhappy with how things are going in terms of always being at the back. And you can’t blame him really. With the pairing vastly under-experienced compared to most of the other drivers they will always be at a disadvantage. Combine that with the Aston Martin GT4 being distinctly heavier and less powerful than all the other cars on the grid and you’re looking at a very tough racing situation. But then you can look at it another way; you’re out driving a race car instead of sitting at home and that puts it into perspective really. Regardless of where you are, the experience of driving one of those cars is unparalleled fun.

Anyway moving on from today’s philosophical enlightenment, the second sprint race of the day Chris really stepped up his pace and set the fastest lap of the weekend for the pair, just dipping into the 1:28 region and even going quicker than Michael did in his short session in the car (‘ave it). He also managed to avoid a massive pile up that claimed multiple cars on the grid just after the second corner. Things were looking good for the Pit stop race on Sunday after the amount of time Chris had had in the car.

With Mika rocking back up to the circuit like a careless teenager 15mins before qualifying it was full guns go from the start. Chris did the usual three laps required then handed over to Mika in order for him to gain some more track time. He put this to very good use by managing to have an extremely hairy moment on the inner track but avoided any damage and any walls for now (side note: it was a year to the absolute day that Mika had quite a significant crash at Le Mans so nerves were a little higher than usual).

Moving into the race the usual tactics were employed with Chris taking the first stint with Mika taking the second and splitting the time exactly down the middle. Chris put in a fantastic first stint with consistent lap times and driving throughout, and brought us into the swap with a 20s advantage over the next Aston Martin. Mika managed to stretch this lead to just over 22s before the other Aston decided to start putting in some very quick lap times out of nowhere. It was set up to be a great race with the two Astons head to head for the final 3 minutes of racing. Unfortunately, after defending one corner very nicely Mika slipped up and span the car at Tarzan, allowing the other Aston to come through and putting the race away for the 22GT pairing. Mika was visibly pissed off after getting out the car which is understandable, but it’s all still a learning experience to move on from.

Next up is the single day at Oulton park, a track where both Chris and Mika made their car racing debut so both drivers are extremely excited to get back.