Beauly teenager Ollie Stewart secures maiden top-10 finish in GB3 Championship as Elite Motorsport racing driver shows speed at Silverstone
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Young Scottish racer Ollie Stewart battled a tough second weekend of his GB3 Championship campaign, taking the positives of a top-10 finish on a tricky visit to Silverstone.
Lining up with Elite Motorsport once again, the Beauly-based teenager continued his learning and gaining experience behind the wheel of the challenging Formula Three level machinery used in the series in just his second season of single seater racing.
In wet conditions last Saturday, he was not able to maximise his qualifying in a session disrupted by a red flag, finishing 19th quickest ahead of that afternoon’s race.
With the rain continuing to fall, visibility was almost non-existent for all but the leader of the race, though Stewart did well with a quick start, gaining several positions off the line.
However, with water then getting inside his visor, his visibility reduced even more, he fell back a few spots as he settled down. From there he battled hard with Michael Shin, being held up before getting through, climbing up to 15th where he finished the race.
In much improved conditions on Sunday, Stewart was judged to have jumped the start of race two, being handed a 10-second penalty. He made a good move on Shin once again to move to 13th on the road but when the extra time was added after the race was classified 19th.
For the final, reverse grid race, he lined up second but slipped back to third for the opening laps, before being handed a five second penalty for exceeding track limits.
With a few laps to run he fought his way past teammate Ayato Iwasaki as he tried to mitigate the penalty, crossing the line third but ultimately was classified seventh.
With his best result of the season under his best, Stewart can now take the positives from the weekend in a tough and competitive series, looking forward to the next races of the campaign at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium over the first weekend in June.
“Race one was the craziest race I've ever driven," Stewart said.
"I got a really, really, good start, got brilliant drive, and passed three people off the line, but the water got stuck in my visor. I couldn't see a single thing into the first and second corners, so I lost those places again, I was just trying to guess which way the track went.
"After we settled down into a rhythm, I managed to get past [Michael] Shin, as he was holding me up for a while. I managed to catch my teammate really, really quickly, but he held me up a bit as well.
"The pace was definitely there, much more so than it was in qualifying, we just needed to have a chance to show that.
“Race two was very interesting, I got a penalty for jumping the start even though I lost five places off the line. I decided to make as most of it as I could, and we definitely did that, gaining 13 or 14 places.
"It was an amazing race, I kept pushing and made some really good overtakes. It was good experience with lots learned, and we had decent pace throughout, but I couldn't really show that as we were in traffic all the time.
“Race three was a bit annoying. I didn't get a great start, which is completely on me, but then I just got my head down, got in a good place, and managed to get ahead of my teammate. I exceeded track limits once, but they decided that was good enough for a five-second penalty.
"However, onwards and upwards, we learned lots this weekend, we're just going to have to keep working hard, and do our best in the upcoming rounds.
“This is a long championship, and the field is so good. All the drivers are extremely competitive and talented, so even if you're 15th or 20th that's a good result, because the drivers are so strong.
"We'll make the most of it, keep working hard, and do the testing that we need to. We're all working really hard, and the car Elite Motorsport are giving me is fast.”
