Podium and Lap Record for Jake Byrne at Silverstone

Kildare’s Jake Byrne scored a pair of impressive podium finishes in the first two rounds of the UK BRSCC Formula Ford 1600 Championship in Silverstone last weekend.

Driving his Ray GR13, Jake was immediately on the pace, despite not having driven on the circuit before. In Saturday’s test he was 3rd overall, just a few tenths off the fastest time. In official qualifying, Jake qualified 3rd, just missing out on a front row start by .002! In race one, he climbed to 2nd, but was delayed by an errant backmarker and dropped to fifth. He charged back up to third by the finish, however,setting a new lap record on the way. In race two, Jake was again in the middle of a hectic battle for the podium places and eventually matched his earlier third place finish to take an impressive haul of points home in his championship quest. Unfortunately Jake was to fall foul of the officials later in the day when they adjudged one his overtaking manoeuvres to have used more of the track than allowed! The resultant penalty was only 2 seconds but the class is so closely fought that this dropped the Kildare driver to sixth.

 
Jake Byrne:
“I really enjoyed that. The track is amazing, really fast with lots of slipstreaming. We had plenty of pace and to a certain extent, the cards did not fall in my favour. The laptimes show that I could have challenged for the win- so I’m looking forward to the next round! I was very disappointed with the penalty, but I can draw on the positives from a great weekend as I had racecraft and pace in abundance- roll on the next round!”

Jake’s next race is at Kirkistown in Northern Ireland on April 25th.

Images from www.bournephoto.co.uk