Jul
12
Scott Malvern: Sensational Spa!
It certainly is a very busy time for me at the moment. I was off to Belgium last Wednesday for the 2nd Formula Ford Euro-Cup event at the awesome Spa circuit where I tested Thursday, qualified and raced on Friday and then raced twice more on Saturday before dashing back to England Saturday evening to be at the British Grand Prix on Sunday. I last went to Spa when I worked as a mechanic for Jamun Racing in 2008 and I remember thinking then how brilliant it would be to come back as a driver one day so I had to pinch myself a little to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming!
I’m now back home and have just a couple of days to catch up on work etc before going back over to Belgium on Thursday for the next Euro Cup event at Zolder. But it’s certainly been an amazing past few days and although very hectic and sometimes tiring also very enjoyable.
Photo Credit:Jacob Ebrey Motorsport Photography
There is already a race report for the weekend on this website so I won’t replicate that here but as you will read Spa certainly presented us with a mountain to climb when after being very quick in testing I had a gearbox problem as I went out for qualifying and I struggled to manage three fast laps which left me with qualification positions of 14th, 16th and 21st for my three races which understandably had a few people writing me off. But “nil desperandum” I say. I’ve been in this position several times in karting where you draw a rear, a middle and a front row grid position for your three heats so am well used to coming through traffic and I have to say that I really enjoyed myself; not that I want to make it this hard every time! But to come away with two wins and 2nd place which was the closest it could to a third win as it possibly could and to get a new lap record on top and clinch my second Euro Cup crown from two events is amazing. I also of course stretched my unbroken win tally to ten races and my overall score to twelve wins from fifteen races this season. Not too bad at all!
Being at the British Grand Prix on Sunday within the British Racing Drivers Club was also a great experience. It was actually the first time I have been lucky enough to attend an F1 GP on race day and in fact the first one I have been at since I was eight years old! Damon Hill was driving for Arrows then and was the reigning World Champion and now he is about to stand down as BRDC President after securing the future of the event and helping to turn Silverstone into a fantastic world class facility. It was just a shame that we didn’t have a British driver on the podium but congratulations to Lewis Williamson on taking the GP3 victory on Sunday morning.
So now we have to prepare for Zolder at the weekend and rest assured we will be working really hard to continue our successful run. Just in closing I’d like to say a really big thank you to my supporters Lynne Baines and Shane Harriot of Baines Leasing and Harriot Plumbing for all their very valuable help at Spa not least actually giving me a lift there and back which was brilliant! Also thank you to all my other loyal supporters but particularly ScanDoc Document Management Services and Allied Tanks & Fabrications and Allied Financial Services for your great assistance that made it possible for me to go to Spa.
Bye for now. I’ll be blogging again soon.
All the best,
Scott