Sam Osborne endured a tough weekend at Brands Hatch for the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship but despite retirement in the third race he learnt a lot about the series in his maiden weekend.
Having not run in the wet during testing, the Excelr8 Motorsport driver qualified twenty-sixth in damp conditions on the Saturday and managed to keep his MG6 GT on the road.
Playing it safe with wet tyres for race one, Osborne enjoyed a comfortable race towards twenty-fourth and a strong début.
Race two started badly when Sam was hit by a drive-through penalty because he was caught creeping forward at the start line. Despite this, he managed to get his head down to gain further knowledge of the car towards twenty-eighth.
Sadly, an incident during race three damaged the rear left of the number four MG6 whilst Sam was running on the fringes of the top twenty. Despite this, the twenty-six year old enjoyed his weekend of ups and downs.
“This weekend’s been a real baptism of fire to be honest.” Said Sam,
“It’s been a learning session for me because the level in the BTCC is so high. My aim was to keep things clean and complete as many laps as I could.
“I feel I’ve learned a massive amount this weekend, both about the car and being a BTCC driver. It was a shame about the retirement in race three. I got squeezed onto the kerb at Paddock Hill Bend and felt something in the rear pop, and from then I just couldn’t get the car back.
“But to finish the weekend with only minor damage is a bonus.”