Yellow Peril

2025 MSV Miata Trophy

Rounds 1 & 2 – Snetterton 300

The new season started at Snetterton and with the success of Miata Trophy over the last two years, we saw an influx of high quality drivers from other championships.

In the week before the race, it became apparent there were supply issues with the Toyo tyres. The organisers decided we can use Toyos if we had them, or use an alternative Davanti tyre. I had a set of hardly worn Toyos from the end of last season, so chose to use them. There was plenty of chat swirling round the paddock before race day, but it proved to be a bit of a storm in a teacup as both tyres seemed to perform similarly.

With the incoming drivers and the tyre changes, this season will be tougher to stay consistently competitive — but I’ll be giving it everything.

There is a new system for qualifying. SuperPole is gone and we now have a 15 minute session, with our fastest lap setting the grid for race one. The grid for race two is determined by the qualifying result, but with the top ten reversed. I had a pretty good session and ended up fifth fastest, just 0.06 seconds off fourth in the 30 car field.

At the start of race one I dropped back initially to seventh, but had a good opening lap and found myself running fourth. I moved into third when Will Morris ran wide, but going through turn one a few laps later I slowed due to a yellow flag as a car was parked beside the circuit. Yellow flags mean slow down and no overtaking. However, I was passed between the flag post and the car, before we immediately caught the safety car. Overtaking behind the safety car is also against the rules, so I chose to stay in position. Unfortunately I lost out on some cement dust after the restart and ended up fifth. Despite providing footage the clerk chose not to take any action. Honestly, I came away feeling pretty robbed.

With the reverse grid I started sixth for race two. I was enjoying a good battle for the podium, but then I lost several places after getting hung out to dry around the Bomb Hole. I felt I was struggling for straight line speed down Snetterton’s long straights, and we subsequently found the air box had come away. Running lower than I wanted to be, the car in front ran wide out of the hairpin, lost control and speared across the circuit into me. The impact broke my suspension, and that was the end of my race. Once again, the clerk chose to do nothing; not that any action would have improved my result.

So it was not the best start to the year. It seems we have some pace and could still enjoy some racing this season, but sadly, for several reasons both on and off the track, this was one of the least enjoyable race weekends I’ve had in a long time. We head to Silverstone next to race on the full Grand Prix circuit, so hopefully things will turn around there. Plus it was great to have number 1 on the car.

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Images: Dave Luck and Nina Worley