Mini challenge UK 2022 Trophy Championship 

A Tough start to the season for capozzoli racing.

With only one full days testing at brands hatch prior to the season opener, we new the first rounds would be tough.
But we was happy with our pace at the brands test and we was hoping to hit the ground running, the goal for the weekend was to be as close to podiums as possible.
Friday practice was ok and we seemed to be on the pace, but I wasn’t 100% happy with the handling of the car or maybe the track, it was strange the car felt great for some corners and awful at others.
The team worked hard over night making sure the car was all ok.
We were hoping for a top 5 in Qualifying to hopefully enable us to be competitive and compete for podiums during the races.
It never quite went to plan I just couldn’t seem to hook up a good lap and I was struggling for consistency, I finished Qualifying in 12th.
I was 3 tenths slower than Friday practice but what made things worse was a few of the drivers went a few tenths faster than Friday meaning the gap was 5-6 tenths to the very front boys, if I could have matched Fridays time I would have qualified top 6 which I would have taken given the lack of testing, but from 12th it was going to be very difficult weekend.

Race 1
The team made a few slight changes to the car from Qualifying so we hoped we would find a few vital tenths.
I Started 12th and I made a fantastic start making up 5 off of the start getting into 7th, I then had 2 good laps on cold tyres and moved into 5th but by lap 3 the front 4 where gone I was In no mans land. A big gap in front of me and the whole pack on my rear bumper. I tried hard to build a gap but I still wasn’t 100% happy with the car and as the race went on I came under more and more pressure from the chasing pack and with a few laps left I just couldn’t hold them off any longer and dropped back to finish 7th. It was still a positive result especially starting from 12th and making up 5 places.

Race 2
The team made a few slight adjustments to the car ready for race 2
I started 7th I made a great start again moving up into 3rd off of the start there was a slight gap to 1st and 2nd. But I was trying hard to close the gap unfortunately mid race I got hit from behind causing me to go across the grass dropping me down to 8th. I fought hard and over the next few laps I made my way back up to 4th, but then with 2 laps to go I got hit again putting me sideways through the last corner dropping me down to 7th. The car was a little battered by the end of the race but we managed to finished where we started.
It was Very disappointing after such a great start but considering the 2 incidents it was a great result.

Race 3
Again the team made some small adjustments to the car as it had been feeling better and better each race.
I started 7th and I made another great start moving up to 4th off of the start.
Then the next few laps I was closing in on 3rd, we had a great battle for a few laps but by lap 5 I was into 3rd. the gap to 2nd was pretty big but I kept trying to catch them. plus I was building a gap to 4th. The remaining laps were a little lonely as I just couldn’t close the gap to the front 2 but I secured my first podium of the season.

Although the results weren’t quite what we wanted, we made a good recovery from Qualifying and progressed nicely in each race then finished on a high with my first podium of 2022.

A huge thanks to Areevemotorsport for the awesome support throughout the weekend