Blake Angliss brought down the curtain on his maiden season of car racing in the Ginetta GT5 Challenge with another fighting performance to match his season-best result of sixth place on the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit this past weekend (7/8 November). The 17-year-old rookie took heart from a strong showing most recently on the shorter National layout of the Home of British Motor Racing in September, and he once again returned to the top six with a charge in the second of the weekend's two curtain-closers. With the final meeting of the season given the green light to continue alongside the British GT Championship, the Richardson Racing driver took to the full GP layout of Silverstone looking to start strongly in Saturday's qualifying session. The Transend-backed Ginetta was consistently inside the top eight for the majority of the session, improving late on to break into the top six. Sadly that time was removed due to a track limits infringement, with Angliss securing seventh and eighth on the grid for the two races. The opening race of the weekend started in dramatic fashion when Angliss looked to capitalise on a few nervy moments going on ahead of him as the field headed up the Hangar Straight for the first time. A spinning car in front under braking for Stowe gave him a scare, but Angliss recovered to join a four-car fight for fourth place in the second half of the race. Attacking for seventh, a flat-spotted front tyre from a lock-up at Village slowed his otherwise exciting chase, Angliss settling for eighth by the flag. Starting eighth for race two, another good start moved the Coventry racer up a spot into seventh place, joining into the battle for a top-four finish over the remainder of the 20 minutes. Surviving a moment with another car during the fight, Angliss climbed to sixth place with the opportunity for two more places in his sights. Attacking on the final lap of the race, a late off at Brooklands cost him the chance to seal his best result of the season, making back to the flag to still match his personal highest finish of sixth place to cap off a strong conclusion to his first half-season in car racing. Blake Angliss: "It was a really good race and we'd shown some good pace especially in the second race. It's just a shame about the last lap as I spun at Brooklands so close from home. "The aim was the top-five but still I can't be too disappointed with sixth place. We dropped back a little, but all-in-all, another good race and a good end to our half-season if you like. These boys have been doing it longer, so it's been a case of making headway and getting further up the order. "I got a bit eager in the first race and maybe should have waited in hindsight for the moment to come late on. But that's just a racing driver thing; you want to move forward and I thought I had a chance but just locked it up, and it dropped me from the tow ahead. Our pace in the races looked great otherwise and we noticed that we actually found speed from qualifying into the races, while others lost time. "It's going to be dependent on our backing, but we've got a few ideas that we just need to sit down and work out to be back out racing next season. Fingers crossed this winter and we'll see how it goes."
Image from Jakob Ebrey Photography.