QUALIFYING:

James qualified P4 and wasn’t at all keen on the way his car was working. James: “It felt like a bag of nails,” he said bluntly. “We probably left too much of a dry setup on it and it was all over the place. It wouldn’t turn in, then it would try to oversteer and I just couldn’t get on the throttle. I got about one good lap, and thank goodness I got that!”

RACE 1:

James celebrates his third victory of this year’s MINI CHALLENGE JCW campaign during an epic opening race of the Brands Hatch MINI Festival weekend!

James: “That was such a hard race, I had a few massive moments and was on the lock-stops a few times! Ben is so good at defending so I knew I had to take my chance to pass him when I had it, but even when I got past I had a whole bunch of cars pushing me really hard. I really had to work for that. The yellow flags at the end at least meant I wasn’t going to get lunged at that part of the track. But I just had to hold my lines and I’m chuffed to bits with that result.”

RACE 2:

James: “It was a tough race and the start was so close. Dan got a great run on the outside of me into the hairpin and I had to defend hard, but then the rear got loose and we touched and Nathan managed to slip past. It was just one of those things. Then with the safety car Nathan got on the power probably only a tenth of a second sooner than me, but it opened that gap up and there wasn’t much I could do. The car felt OK, but we’re still chasing something in the setup.”

RACE 3:

James: “The car just wasn’t very good in that one, and we have to find out why. I was struggling for grip and got hit a fair few times, so that may have contributed I guess.”