Rowan Vincent scored a trio of points finishes in the Michelin Ginetta Junior Championship during a tricky visit to Snetterton this past weekend (24/25 October). The trip east to Norfolk marked the penultimate meeting of Vincent’s maiden car-racing campaign. As the longest circuit on the calendar, the technical Snetterton ‘300’ layout was a tricky one to master and that meant Friday’s two free practice sessions were going to be crucial. Vincent, who turned 16 in the week leading up to the event, started making some good improvements in the dry behind the wheel of his Richardson Racing prepared Ginetta G40, however the appearance of rainfall then halted his progress. Subsequently feeling on the backfoot heading into the weekend’s action, the Woking based driver had a difficult run in qualifying on Saturday morning. Finding it tough to get his tyres up to temperature on a bitterly cold morning, he ended the session as the 20th quickest driver. Two races followed that afternoon, with the Concreate, V4 Woodflooring Ltd and CPP backed racer enjoying some close fought racing in both. He emerged from a fun one-on-one duel in the opener in 19th, before being in the thick of the action again in race two as he secured an 18th place finish. After improving his fastest lap time by nearly a second across the two races, Vincent put in another battling display in the live televised finale on Sunday. Climbing up to 17th at one stage in a close fought group, unfortunately a wide moment led to him finishing 18th. Rowan Vincent: “Snetterton is a complex, technical circuit and with limited testing there, the free practice sessions on Friday were crucial for me. Unfortunately the changing conditions meant that our dry running was limited and that made it a tough weekend. “I gave it everything in the races and enjoyed some close wheel-to-wheel racing. It’s a shame that I couldn’t make too much progress, but it’s all a learning experience and I gained a lot of knowledge this weekend to take into the season finale.” The 2020 Michelin Ginetta Junior Championship season comes to an end in three weeks’ time (14/15 November) with two races around Vincent’s local circuit of Brands Hatch in Kent.
Image from Jakob Ebrey Photography.