Banbury racing driver Will Bratt declared himself happy with his maiden test run at Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit, during official practice ahead of the weekend’s 11th and 12th rounds of the Formula Renault UK Championship.
Making a one-off return to the category in which he finished third overall last year with four race victories to his credit, the 20-year-old Oxon driver will take part in the biggest event on the Formula Renault UK calendar this weekend at his home venue – the British round of the World Series by Renault which is expected to attract up to 150,000 spectators.
Lapping the 3.2-mile Silverstone GP configuration with a best time of 1m 47.932 seconds (171.4 km/h) during Thursday’s sole 55-minute test session, Will concluded his run just six 1,000ths of a second shy of the top 10 in 11th place, a great platform to work from ahead of qualifying which will take place tomorrow, Saturday, 7th June.
Having graduated to Formula 3 racing this year in the FIAT Spanish F3 Championship, Will used today’s test to re-adapt from his regular EmiliodeVillota.com Motorsport Dallara F308 car to the Apotex Scorpio Motorsport run 2.0-litre FR 2.0 racer he last campaigned in October 2007. The remainder of the Formula Renault UK field had the benefit of a prior test at Silverstone’s GP track back in March.
“I’m fairly happy with how the test went”, said Will, “If I had managed to string together my best sector times we’d have ended the session in about seventh place so that bodes well considering I haven’t been in the car for a long time and today was also the first time I have ever driven the full Grand Prix track in a race car.
“We need to work on the car between now and qualifying on Saturday to make a few changes, I need to be able to get the power down earlier in some of the corners so if we can resolve that and achieve a good balance I’m confident we should be ok.”
The reason for Will’s one-off return to Formula Renault UK this weekend is largely to assist Loughborough based Apotex Scorpio which also fields cars for first year Formula Renault UK racers Josh Scott, Kieran Clark and ‘Tom’ Hung Sak Mun.
“I’m there to do a job for the team this weekend, provide some data for the other three guys to work with and hopefully help bring the team on for the second half of the season”, added Will, “It’s great to be back working with Apotex Scorpio, if we can come away with a top six position in qualifying I’ll be delighted.”
Returning to his studies at Oxford University today, Will steps back into his Formula Renault on Saturday, 7th June, at 13.05 for the 25-minute qualifying session which will determine the grid for the 11th and 12th rounds of the season. Both races will be held on Sunday, 8th June, at 09.00 and 16.45 respectively.
| 
|