Oliver Basey-Fisher produced one of his best outings of the Ginetta Junior Championship season in the penultimate rounds of the year at Silverstone, securing his second biggest points haul of the year.
The Suffolk teenager was in the thick of an all-action encounter in the opening race, jumping from sixth on the grid up to third on the first lap, before being pushed back down to sixth over the next two laps. After slipping outside the top six at mid-distance, Basey-Fisher briefly fought back to sixth, before eventually settling for seventh.
The second race saw the reigning Ginetta Scholarship winner line-up seventh, with a poor opening lap seeing him shuffled back to tenth. He fought back though, a fantastic drive seeing him emerge sixth on the road, before being promoted to fifth when a rival received a time penalty.
“It’s been a really good weekend”, said Oli, “Testing in the dry on Friday afternoon was really good, we showed some good pace there. That showed potential for the rest of the weekend, so I went into qualifying feeling confident and the car was feeling good.
“Qualifying was definitely the best we’ve done in a long time, I knew we could fight for the top five in the two races. I got an absolutely flying start to Saturday’s race, I moved up to third by the end of the first lap which was really good. I couldn’t quite hold it and got a little bit mugged, dropping to eighth, but we ended up seventh. It was a good race in terms of racecraft, I’m fairly happy with it.
“Race two was even better in terms of the end result, the start wasn’t as good though and I braked a bit too hard at Copse so lost a few places there. I managed to claw some places back though, and there were a few incidents ahead of me, I came through nicely and followed Sennan [Fielding] – we just ran out of laps but could have been right in that front mix. I’m really happy to be back in the top five though, a really strong weekend and now I can’t wait for Brands Hatch.”
