SILVERSTONE
750MC
18-19 MAY
It was a weekend of contrasting fortunes for Matt Harbot, who bounced back from mechanical dramas to claim his second Formula Vee victory during the 750 Motor Club meeting at Silverstone.
The Volkswagen-based single-seater series boasted a strong 33-car field for its first visit to Silverstone’s National circuit in 12 years. On his first appearance of the season, three-time champion Martin Farmer was unable to beat his own lap record from 2012 but still recorded a superb triumph from 12th on the grid in Saturday’s contest.
Farmer avoided a first-lap melee that eliminated several drivers, including championship contender Ben Cressey, to climb to sixth in his GAC. After making up four more places over the next two laps, he snatched the lead into Brooklands from Harbot, who was struggling with a gearbox issue. After losing a further place to Craig Bell, Harbot retired his AHS Dominator. “It was a very long day, everything was long bar our race,” said Harbot. “We changed the gearbox [after qualifying] but it kept jumping out of gear. I was driving with one hand, which broke the engine.”
Bell applied pressure on Farmer in the race’s second half, but came home 0.395 seconds behind, while Dan Polley (Sheane) prevailed in a five-way battle to score a first UK podium in his second weekend.
Harbot took a lights-to-flag victory on Sunday, breaking clear early on after Polley spun at Copse and delayed the cars behind. Farmer climbed from 12th to second but was one of many to spin on oil at Brooklands, with Bell finishing runner-up after battling past Bill Garner late on. “After yesterday, it makes it feel so much better,” said Harbot. “It was difficult as we didn’t have anyone in front of us to gauge where the oil was, but it was a good result.”
Reigning champion Adam Lockwood and four-time conqueror Shaun Traynor took a win apiece during two hard-fought Toyota MR2 encounters. Lockwood led the opener as Traynor tried to make up for a lack of straight-line speed. Slight contact between the pair at Copse allowed Andrew Ruthven to briefly move ahead, but they soon resumed their lead battle and were separated by just 0.003s at the beginning of the final lap, with Lockwood prevailing for his fourth straight victory.
Traynor made the better start to lead race two and made his MR2 “the widest car I’ve ever had” to hold off Lockwood for a fir
