Porsche Club Championship 2022

We arrived at Donington Park on Friday morning, with Carl Hazelton, Centre Principal ready and excited to get out in the car for the first time this season. After unloading the car and beginning the preparations, the time soon came for Carl to take to the track for his first test session of the day, starting at 10am.

After the first session ended, the team decided they weren’t happy with how the car was running, and so after a little alteration and some quick thinking, we were able to adjust the necessary components - hopeful that we would improve the handling – and before we knew it, the time came for Carl to take to the track again.

The second test session began and Carl quickly closed the gap between himself and the cars ahead of him. After the test session ended, we swapped out our tyres in the hope of seeing more improvement that afternoon and sure enough it worked!

Later that afternoon, Carl was back on track flying through his last two test sessions in the afternoon. After his final test session of the day, we tucked the car away into garage #24, ready for race day.

Saturday morning came and the team were busy about the garage, getting the car prepared for our qualifying round.  Carl donned his racing suit and emerged from the pitlane ready to race. 10 minutes into our qualifier, a yellow flag was raised due to one of Carl’s competitors losing control of their car. Despite this intermission, Carl returned to the track to secure 7th Place.

Come 14:55 the alarm sounded and sure enough, it was time for Carl to head out on his first race of this season. With experience on his side, Carl was able to defend his place during the race and returned to the garage with another 7th Place finish.

Later that evening, as the sun began to set and the weather began to turn, Carl returned to the start line, for his last race of the day. Setting off with slick tyres, the track slowly began to turn treacherous, the rain began to pour and corners of the track that Carl easily careered around earlier in the day turned into watery skidpans. Yet, despite the conditions Carl pushed on, coming to the realisation that stopping to change tyres would sacrifice valuable time. With some of his competitors losing control, Carl was able to expertly manoeuvre the track as if the rain wasn’t a problem, crossing the finish line in 8th place.

On Friday 29 April as the sun shone over Brands Hatch, our team were en-route to the lower paddock, to begin a day of testing with our race car, ahead of rounds 3 and 4 the following day.

Quickly sailing through the first test session of the day, Carl returned to the paddock with ideas to help fine tune the car ahead of the next test session and thus, the team got to work.

11:20 and the green flag waving, now came the chance for Carl to put his ideas into motion and see whether the changes paid off. After returning from the second test session, the commentators called an early lunch due to an incident with another vehicle while it was out on track. This therefore gave our team an extra window of opportunity with the car, before our afternoon test session began at 14:00

After our afternoon test sessions concluded, Carl and the car returned to the paddock feeling ready and excited to see how the adjustments made throughout the day would pay off tomorrow, for racing on the GP circuit.  

The whistle blew and the green flags waved, the qualifying session had begun. Carl emerged from the start line ahead of the entire grid. We wanted to get some clear laps before getting hampered by a busy grid. After raking in over eleven laps of the 9-corner track, the chequered flag was raised and Carl returned to the paddock securing a 7th Place qualifying result.

After lunch, the time had come for Round 3 of the Porsche Club Championship to commence. Shortly after the race had begun and drivers began raking in laps of the track there was an unfortunate incident, where a class three Boxster had collided with one of the safety barriers causing the race to be halted and eventually called off by the race officials. We later learned they had based the results off of the first two complete laps, instead of attempting to restart the race, or rescheduling it for another date. As a result, we claimed another 7th place finish, followed by an 8th place finish in the second race.

Progress has been made and we are looking forward to Snetterton in June.

Located over 200 miles away, Snetterton circuit, based in Norfolk is the furthest circuit away from our Centre, but it is a fantastic circuit, and one which Carl enjoys competing at.

Carl qualified in 8th place, and finished his first race in 7th place, and the second race in 8th place.  We very much look forward to the next rounds which are at our home circuit of Oulton Park.

Our home track provided our best result this season and some good progress was made. It was made even more special as we had provided hospitality for over 150 customers and staff. The weather was perfect and everyone seemed to have a great time.

Carl got a fast start off the grid in the first race, and then received a 'love tap' into Old Hall Corner from another driver!  The nudge took Carl's fourth place away from him (just two tenths of a second behind it), however Carl was happy to finish the race in 5th place.

The second race was another quick start although no places were gained from the qualifying position of seventh the day prior.  Carl commented afterwards that the pace was quick and tough to stay in-touch.  He started to get into a good rhythm with the track, making headway to catch Angus Archer in third.  Unfortunately the duration of the race was cut by five minutes which prevented him from gaining a place. So this race was finished in 7th.

Our trip to Silverstone began with a test day on the Friday. We had four 30-minute sessions spread across the day on the track, with breaks in between, followed by ‘race day’ on Saturday. This consisted of the usual morning qualifier and two races in the afternoon.

09:00am and the pitlane quickly began filling for what would later become one of the most interesting test sessions of the season. The flags waved and as quickly as it filled, the pitlane cleared, filling the track with GT cars, Porsche Club Championship cars and more.

After a few hours, and a couple more positive test sessions, the time came for our last session of the day. 15:10 and the flag waved, and onto the track came our #24 racecar. After successfully navigating a quite busy track, unfortunately a yellow flag was raised. One of the GT cars that had been out on track at the same time as our car had been involved in an incident, resulting in the driver being airlifted to the local hospital.

After an eventful test day prior, our team returned to the track bright and early to begin preparations for the day’s race. Our driver, Carl, attended the safety briefing, and meanwhile the rest of the team began final preparations for the qualifying race at 10:55. 20 minutes later a chequered flag flew and Carl crossed the finish line in 6th place.

Following a quick intermission for lunch, it was back in the driver’s seat and enroute to the assembly area in anticipation of our first race of the afternoon. The marshals blew the whistle and the race was underway. Lap after lap passed and before we knew it, the race was over, bringing back a 7th place result. After that, the wait was on for our second race to start at 18:00, later that evening.

Before we knew it the final race had started and finished, with Carl returning to the garage for the final time that weekend, securing another 7th place result.

Our weekend at Brands Hatch for the 11th and 12th races of the Porsche Club Championship certainly was an action-packed one… Beginning with our test day on Friday, our first couple of sessions went off without a hitch, with Carl taking to the track aiming to beat his ideal time while also ensuring the car handled and performed confidently, ahead of the race the following day.

However, during one of our sessions as the car approached Druids corner, suddenly out of nowhere a fault occurred, causing the car to seize up and career-on into the gravel banks beyond. Getting the car back to the garage, we later discovered a fault with the anti-lock braking system. Thankfully however, the fault had occurred on our test day and not during the race itself so that we had plenty of time to correct it. Our pit crew delved into getting the fault fixed before Carl’s last session of the day.

The next day kicked off with the qualifying session beginning at 09:50, the green lights flashed and the race had begun. However, due to an incident on track, the race had to be halted and restarted, causing it to be cut short by a few minutes and Carl returned to the paddock with an 8th place result. Our first race wasn’t scheduled until 13:05 however the day was running ahead of schedule and by 12:35, Carl was back in the car, on the starting grid.  After pushing 28 laps of the 1.2-mile, quintuple bend circuit the flag waved and the car returned to the garage, this time with a 9th place result despite a new problem occurring with the car’s power steering, after feeling ‘funny’ the day before.

The last race wasn’t scheduled until 17:15, however with the day running ahead of schedule, the pressure was on for our team to try and resolve the power steering problem in time for Carl to compete in his final race. After a couple of hours our team managed to resolve the problem and Carl headed for the assembly area, in anticipation of the final race to begin. Less than a minute after gathering on the grid for the tyre warming lap, the cars returned in formation for the start grid and the race quickly begun…

Unfortunately, by the time they’d reached Hailwoods Hill, chaos had ensued on track. What had started as a couple of lead cars losing control and pirouetting in the centre of the track had caused a chain reaction with the other cars trying to avoid them, and subsequently losing control themselves. Carl for the most part managed to dodge the carnage, until the last moment where unfortunately, another vehicle had picked up speed in reverse, slamming into the front corner of our car and crumpling the passenger-side front wheel and bumper. On a positive note though, the rebuild is well underway in anticipation for our last race of the season, at the end of October at Donington Park.

Donington Park - Race 13 and 14

Friday 28 October marked the end of the season for the Porsche Club Championship, back where it began, at Donington Park. Testing kicked off with our first session scheduled at 09:00, The session was well underway, however with only a few minutes to go disaster occurred. As the car passed the pitlane on one of the last laps, it lost control and spun off the track, before stopping at the entrance to the pitlane. After limping back to the garage with an irreparable front bumper, the race was on to get the car back into a racing condition. Within moments, we had a new bumper on the way and our technicians primed and ready to fit it. Unfortunately, repairs took most of the morning and subsequently caused us to miss our second test session.

By lunchtime, the new bumper had been fitted and the car was ready to get back out on track. Returning to the track for the second time today, all seemed to be going well, until we discovered that the battery in the front foot well had split and had begun leaking acid, meanwhile, the coolant pipe at the other end of the car had come loose during the session, causing coolant to leak out on track. The marshals were quick to halt the session and clean up our leak, meanwhile our team back in the garage made haste to resolve these new problems hopeful to get the car repaired in time for the last test session of the day.

With our team en route back to the track after purchasing a new battery, unfortunately, local traffic caused a delay meaning we missed half of our last test session finally, Carl was able to get out on track and get in some practice laps before the race day on Saturday.

Donington Park - Race 13 and 14

Saturday Morning came, and the team returned to the track, ready for the day ahead. Carl attended the morning briefing at 08:00, while the rest of the team busied themselves with preparing the car for his qualifying race despite the wet track. Qualifying wasn’t scheduled until 11:35 as – a rare occurrence - There was a chance for a final extra test session that morning. After a few moments of consideration and it was decided that Carl would participate in the session, to put the ‘wet’ tyres through their paces. As the car was out on track, the excitement grew, and lap after lap the best lap time improved, to a point where Carl was rivalling the class leaders.

Qualifying began at 11:35 however, after a successful practice session earlier in the morning, Friday wasn’t the end of the problems. Crossing the finish line with a 9th place result and a faulty electronic suspension, our team now had a new problem to fix, with less than an hour until the first race. Luckily, our technicians were able to quickly diagnose the problem and repair it.

Starting race one at the back of the grid due to issues in Qualifying, Carl was able to consolidate his position on the leaderboard, returning back with another 9th place.  

After lunch and the time soon came for the second race to begin, with supporters dotted around the track cheering Carl on, the time passed quickly and soon enough the race was over ending this time in 10th place and with that the season drew to a close. With the leaderboard tallied up and scores finalised, Carl finishes the 2022 race season with another 6th place result.