PANDA ACE HAMISH ENJOYS ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

PANDA Racing star Hamish Brandon believes he has done the hard yards in rising to a new challenge in the Milltek Sport VW Racing Cup.

Hamish, from Hawick in the Scottish Borders, has moved to the series after being a consistent race winner in the British Mini Challenge. He has agreed a season-long deal with Tony Gilham’s Team Hard. He got his first outing in the car in the VAG Trophy – a feeder series for the VW Racing Cup – and came fifth at Donington while clocking the fastest lap of the race.

Hamish knew Rockingham would be a tougher challenge as he had never been to the Northamptonshire circuit and was still getting to grips with the VW Golf. He qualified 12^th and stayed in that position after a hard-fought first race. Race two showed even more progress but an incident right in front of him meant he had to take to the grass and that cost him a couple of places as he finished 13^th.

Hamish reckons the work put in over the weekend has proved he has the pace to be at the front of the grid as the season progresses. He is already looking forward to a bank holiday outing at Oulton Park at the end of May.

HAMISH SAYS:

“The VW Racing Cup is one of the most competitive series for tin-tops in the country. That was what attracted me to it. I knew it would be difficult – especially as I had never done Rockingham before. The aim was always to use this weekend as a learning session and see where we are in the series.

“We did Donington in the VAG Trophy just to get used to the car in preparation for Rockingham. We only had an hour track time in testing because we had to use the afternoon session to sort our tyres. I had to get to grips with the circuit very quickly and it is a tough track because a couple of corners are a lot faster than you think.

“We were under pressure on Friday but we still got a lot of good data that we could use for qualifying. There was consistent improvement and we definitely closed the gap to the front-runners in lap times but we still knew it would be a case of trying to find time every time we got in the car.

“It is a new car and it is very different to the Mini. The big thing has been getting used to having no ABS – that is the first time I have raced with no ABS. The Hankook tyre is a new compound and there is a trick to getting the heat in the back tyres. That caught me out in the first race, the back tyres were just too cold.

“We made some changes in set-up to generate more heat and that seemed to work. We are leaning all the time and we are making progress. The tweaks we made improved the car and I felt more comfortable. That is only going to get better as the season goes on.

“I think we showed we have the pace in race two. It was unfortunate that a car spun ahead of me and I had to hit the grass. Despite that, I closed the gap back up very quickly so that is a big positive.

“I now need to get that last little bit of confidence in the car and we move on to Oulton Park. I like Oulton and hopefully what we have done here at Rockingham will be a good building block for a successful weekend at Oulton.”

The next round of the Milltek Sport VW Racing Cup is at Oulton Park on May 28 and 30.

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