Rowan Vincent had a weekend to forget as he brought his first season in the Michelin Ginetta Junior Championship to a close at Brands Hatch this weekend (14/15 November). It marked a second visit of the season to Vincent’s local circuit, having previously raced there back at the start of August. This time around they were on the shorter 1.21 mile Indy layout, one which has always produced close, exciting racing in the Ginetta Junior Championship. The Woking based racer was therefore looking forward to the meeting and he got off to a positive start in free practice on Friday. After enjoying some productive running in both dry and wet conditions, he was unfortunately unable to build on it during qualifying the next day. Greeted by wet conditions, Vincent pushed hard to complete a quick lap but a combination of red flag stoppages during the session and traffic on circuit meant he was unable to get a clear effort in. This meant he qualified 21st for both of the two races. Eager to make some progress up the order in the opening race on Saturday afternoon, Vincent was to sadly be left frustrated. In a race dominated by a red flag restart and safety car periods, he only had six racing laps in total to battle his way to 17th at the finish. Unfortunately Vincent endured a nightmare end to the season in race two on Sunday. A car in front of him stalled on the grid and with nowhere to go, he hit the rear of the train and retired on the spot with heavy damage to his Concreate, V4 Woodflooring and CPP backed car. Rowan Vincent: “This really wasn’t how we wanted to end our season. Qualifying was a mess with the red flags and we couldn’t get a clear lap. That put us on the back foot for the races, with limited chance to make progress in race one and then an incident out of my control in race two. “There’s been lots of ups and downs but that’s motorsport isn’t it. Racing in the Ginetta Juniors is without a doubt the highlight of my life and I would do anything to get back in one again. I never did quite punch through to a top ten, but I’ve been racing against an immensely talented grid. “It’s been absolutely mega to have been given this opportunity and I want to say thank you to everyone in the Richardson Racing team, including our driver coaches Kieran Vernon and Mike Epps. Thanks to my sponsors and my family and friends too for all their support.”
Image from Jakob Ebrey Photography.