After the halfway point in the season at Donington last time out, it was time for the only over seas round of the season, and what a track to go away for; the epic Spa Francorchamps cirucit. I'd never been to the circuit before so I was open to the idea of having to learn the circuit when I first rolled onto the track in Saturday morning practice. I'd driven the track hundreds of times before on my Xbox at home, surely I'd be able to learn the circuit quickly right? Wrong! Everyone who has raced at Spa before has always told me that nothing can prepare you for the gradient changes the track possesses and having now experienced it first hand, I can say it is truly an epic place to drive flat-out. 

Unfortunately, heading into the weekend however, the entire Century Motorsport GT4 team was dealt a hammer blow as our BoP (Balance of Performance) really hit our car hard. Driving a car that was up to 50BHP down on what it should be made a massive difference to both the speed, and the enjoyability of the car. The M4 makes up most of it's time compared to the competition on the long straights so we were looking forward to hopefully making up substantial time on our rivals on Spa's long straights, but having this power deficit meant we were now bottom of the speed traps! It didn't get much better unfortunately. Qualifying the car P18 overall and P10 in class was honestly the best the car could do. My time was the fastest time of all 4 M4 drivers so the car just didn't have the pace. 

Onto the race and Andrew, my teammate would start the car as the slower of the two drivers in qualifying. He made an reasonable start and made up steady ground from our disappointing grid slot. However, as is the case with starting towards the back,he got caught up in the melee and was on the receiving end of a brainless dive from a McLaren half way through his stint and had to return to the pits with broken steering. As karma goes, said McLaren didn't finish the race but repairing the car cost us 8 laps over the leader of GT4 and even though my hour long stint brought the car to the finish of the race, we could only salvage P11 in class at the chequered flag.

Deflated to say the least, but it's the weekends like this where you find the most motivation. I didn't put a foot wrong all weekend so I have that to build on from a personal perspective and I'll be back stronger at Brands Hatch GP in just under 2 weeks time!

As always, thank you to my amazing sponsors, especially Cambridge & Counties Bank and the Classic Car Bank for their continuous support as I continue to aspire to a professional career in Motorsport.