Matthew Brabham produced a battling display in the final round of the 2012 Protyre Formula Renault BARC Championship at Silverstone.
After an excellent run to sixth place in his debut race earlier in the weekend, newly-crowned Team USA Scholarship winner Brabham had a much tougher encounter in race two.
After qualifying a lowly fourteenth, Brabham made his going harder with a slow getaway off the line, ending the first lap an unrepresentative eighteenth. Enjoying some great scraps in the hectic midfield throughout the race, which was interrupted by two safety car periods, Brabham eventually emerged in fourteenth place in his Cliff Dempsey Racing-run FR 2.0.
“I’m happy with how the weekend went,” he concluded. “I learned a lot from racing with these guys. It was quite challenging as everyone was so close. My first qualifying and race went really well; it was great to get sixth place for the first race. I struggled a bit in the second qualifying and that hurt me in the second race. I learned so much from this weekend though and really enjoyed it. The team was great and worked extremely hard, and all the people here supporting me were a great help; I can’t thank them enough.”
Brabham, who recently clinched this year’s Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda and will graduate to the Star Mazda Championship next season, will now return to the United States to take part in the Mazda Road to Indy test at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course on October 10/11.
He will then travel back to the UK for the first round of the Formula Renault BARC Winter Series at the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit on October 20/21.