Our sole visit to Silverstone for 2020 takes place on our amended calendar with plenty of top-line championships and series carrying on their truncated calendars with plenty of healthy grids expected almost entirely across the board. The National circuit is the layout of choice for this race meeting, meaning that there’s sure to be plenty of slipstreaming, late braking, overtaking
The headline act for Saturday’s racing will be the penultimate round of the season for the FunCup Championship, which has so far produced three different winners and some incredible battles up and down the field. Team 7 WASPP lead the way and are in top form after they clinched their first victory at the previous round at Thruxton, but they were pressed all the way by the likes of Axiametrics, Make Happen Racing/2 Rent Dominos, defending champions Uvio/Hofmanns Lotus, Team Viking and more. The four hour race will certainly be excellent as despite the length, it never fails to provide exceptional entertainment from start to finish and in many cases, the winning margins are closer than you may think! Prepare for an enduro to be driven like a sprint race!
Leading the timetable on Sunday will be two races from the combined grid for TCR UK & Dunlop Touring Car Trophy and the Volkswagen Racing Cup, who will be hoping for better weather than that which they tackled at their season opener back in July at Oulton Park. In the touring car segment of the grid, Lewis Kent and Henry Neal both took a win apiece and will be keen to add to their trophy cabinets, but they are sure once again to come up again some stern competition from the likes of Dan Kirby, Max Hart and Darelle Wilson as the championship returns to the venue that TCR UK first began its life back in 2018. On the VW Cup side of the entry, Richard Gilbert and Josh Coggan will want to continue the momentum gained from Oulton to maintain their places at in the top two spots in the standings after just one meeting. Mark Wakefield and Andy Wilmot may end up being their nearest challengers, along with appearances from Paul Ivens, Bradley Kent, Russell Joyce and Jeff Alden also set to be made this weekend.
The biggest collective paddock this weekend will undoubtedly belong to the Mazda MX-5 contingent, with almost 100 cars across two championships! The Mazda MX-5 Championship for Mk1 models sports a capacity entry of 60 cars with the three group system in use once again as it was at Cadwell Park last month. Joe Wiggin has a four point lead in the standing after two weekends over Oliver Allwood, with Wiggin winning four of the five races contested while Allwood has the other along with podiums three 2nd places and a 3rd. Former double champion Will Blackwell-Chambers has some catching up to do with a 13 point gap to the lead in 3rd place, just one ahead of his team boss Mike Comber, while other challengers for victories and podiums are sure to come in the form of Matt Luff, Oliver Graham, Seb Fisher, Jack Brewer, Steve Foden and Brian Trott amongst many others. With so many cars in the entry, the grids for all three races are guaranteed to be busy!
Alongside them, the BRSCC Mazda MX-5 SuperCup will once again host just over 30 cars with almost all of the drivers that competed at the previous round at Donington Park back once again. Samuel Smith may have only won one race so far, but he leads the way from three times defending champion Luke Herbert, who has taken three himself but thanks to a spin in the second race at Cadwell Park, a finish outside the top ten is the only blot on his copy book, so to speak. Patrick Fletcher’s first win must be around the corner soon, while further competition is sure to come from Jack Sycamore, Adam Bessell, John Langridge, Colin Bysouth and also the return of 2014 champion Abbie Eaton, who enjoyed her cameo appearance at Donington Park that she’s come back for more fun!
The BRSCC Fiesta Junior Championship racing with MRF Tyres continues its superb progress this year as Silverstone welcomes the touring car and GT racing stars of the future for their second weekend of racing. After they began in sublime fashion at Cadwell Park with an 11 car entry, this weekend they could be set to see that number jump to 15, with as many as four new drivers potentially debuting at this meeting – Mitch Marie missed the Cadwell opener but will begin his season here with Misty Racing, a new team to the FJC paddock, while Alastair Rushforth Motorsport have added a second car to their ranks as Alex Ley prepares to join Will Orton this time. Alex Sprange has been testing regularly at Lydden Hill to get up to speed ahead of his first ever car race, while it was just recently announced that Jake Weston will be the latest young driver to join the ranks with Race Car Consultants after beginning his season in junior formulae elsewhere. Meanwhile at the head of the points standings, last year’s vice champion Joseph Loake will want to claim another clean sweep after he cleaned house at Cadwell with pole in qualifying, both race wins and both fastest laps, meaning he took the maximum score from those rounds. Orton will be sure to give chase as will the likes of Albert Webster, Dylan Hotchin, Bradley Beavers, Jenson Brickley and George Davis, as everyone on the grid continues their racing education. This should be a thrilling weekend of racing for these young chargers and Silverstone lends itself to entertaining racing, so we should be in for a real treat here!
Their senior counterparts in the BRSCC Fiesta Championship racing with MRF Tyres will also be on track again too, and will once again share the track with the Hyperdrive ST-XR Challenge (more on them in a moment). At Cadwell, three different drivers won the opening three races, with the Watkins brothers Sam and Joshua claiming one a piece while former Michelin Clio Cup frontrunner Luke Pinder took the other. Neither Pinder nor Joshua Watkins are listed as entered at the time of writing and they are the top two drivers in points heading to Silverstone, meaning the highest placed driver on the grid to begin the weekend will be rookie Spencer Stevenson who impressed many in his first races. As well as returns this weekend for driver such as Zachary Lucas, Richard Ashmole and Robert Stevens, Silverstone also welcomes former Production BMW and Clio Cup UK champion Ben Winrow onto a Fiesta grid for the first time, while the two new turbo Fiesta ST180s of David Nye and John Cooper will be back once more in the Invitation class as they continue their development ahead of the car’s full championship debut in its own class in 2021.
The ST-XR Challenge are sure to be just as exciting, as has been proven in their opening rounds so far as Oulton Park and Cadwell Park. The story of the season appears to be the almost never-ending battle between William Heslop and Mark Robinson, who have been practically inseperable ever since the lights went out at Round 1. Just two points separate them in the overall and Class D standings with neither driver looking to give an inch to the other, so Silverstone will certainly another stern test of their rivalry. Teammates Sam Beckett and Chris Grimes will be sure to chase them all the way in both races in the class, while Jason Hennefer will get ready to go back and forth in their Escort XR3i’s for Class B honours and Matthew Morton will hope to keep Steve Clapton and Paul Green at bay in Class A for the Fiesta XR2s. 2020 has seen a superb growth for the ST-XR Challenge in terms of grid sizes and while the entry for their “away round” is a little smaller than those which helped entertain the Oulton and Cadwell spectators, the action from these guys will certainly be something to watch.
There’s also set to be even more hot hatch action in the shape of the excellent Milltek Civic Cup, where these sensational Honda Civic Type Rs look and sound just like mini touring cars! Bruce Winfield leads the standings with two wins and two 2nd places and his current 22 point lead heading to Silverstone appears to put him as favourite to claim championship honours in this shortened season. Alistair Camp, Paul Taylor and Max Lewis will all be keen to chase him down as will David Buky, while Martin Dalzell makes his first start of the 2020 campaign and be sure to watch out for the likes of the impressive Jamie Tonks in his first season of racing full stop, Bradley Lane, Morgan Bailey and Ross Darlington.
To round off the weekend’s action, Sunday’s final race is set to be mega – the combined grid for the BRSCC Clubsport Trophy and the new-for-2020 BRSCC CityCar Cup. The Clubsport competitors fired into life at Cadwell Park with a thoroughly entertaining race which saw Brian Chandler claim the outright win in his Lotus Exige, and while he may not be competing on this occasion, there’s still plenty of cars that can take that accolade. Along with the entry full of the usual influx of Mazda MX-5s and Honda Civics, there’s also Toyota Celicas, MINIs and a Porsche Boxster, plus the return of Mark Thomas’ exquisite Ford Capri, a Caterham Roadsport and an Alfa Romeo GTV. Over in the ranks of the CityCar Cup, almost everyone that raced in the series debut at Cadwell are back including the first ever winner Nic Grindrod, plus Richard Brunning of Bad Obsession Motorsport, Steve Laidlay, Tim Evans and Liam Browning. Paul Savage will make his first appearance in one of these excellent little buzzsaws too, so he’ll be looking to get up to speed as quickly as possible against the others!
