2025 Miata Trophy Round 4 Donington Park GP Review: Qualifying Woes & Recovery Drives

Well the home race never fails to deliver on drama if nothing else!

Leading up to the weekend in terms of car improvements I didn't feel like too much was needed to be done. Before the weekend we had a really really promising test day on the GP circuit at Donington and overall the car at Brands started to feel better and better!

The first run on Friday though seemed very different, which initially I thought was going to lead to another confusing day of where on earth has the pace in the car suddenly gone, but thankfully it turned out everyone else was in the same boat! The heat on track was killing the lap times but the overall handling of the car got better and better throughout the day!

Overall the pace was there in the dry to be a bit further forward than I had been at Brands Hatch...

So of course, after months of barely having any rain, Saturday morning, just before the start of qualifying it started to very lightly rain.

This left us with a decision to make, being first session out on track as well, we had to make a decision based on how wet we thought the circuit would be. Having a brand new set of tyres for the wet weather that was due for later in the day, we decided to go onto a partly worn tyre, thinking we would save the full wets for when we were likely to need them later in the day....

Unfortunatley when we got onto the circuit, it became very clear the wet tyres would have been the best tyres to be on by a long way! But as the rain stopped and the circuit started to dry up a little, it seemed the circuit conditions were going to come back towards us on the worn tyres. The session however turned into a 1 lap session, as on lap 6 the rain started coming down again a lot harder and the lap times completely fell off... much like what I nearly did on lap 5, where at the top of the hill at Coppice, I went in slightly too hot, and was too wide, throwing 0.84seconds down the drain.

That lap ended up being my fastest of the session, resulting in a disasterous P12 qualifying finish, meaning both races I would start 12th... not the home race start I wanted.

In between qualifying and Race 1, the track continued to get wetter and wetter, meaning this time the decision to go on the brand new tyres was an absolute no brainer! We softened the car up further as well and headed out for what was always likely to be a bit of a wild race with a lot of cars out of position further down the pack!

As the lights went out I initially got a decent but unspectactular launch, however I immediatly gained one place with Declan Lee not getting off the line. I commited to the outside trying to find some grip and on the run down to Craners I was already up from 12th to 7th place! As we headed up to Schwantz curver, Alex Millar got a pretty spectacular slide on, resulting in my taking 6th, directly behind the Mk4 Mx5 of Brian Chandler.

At this point I discovered why multiclass racing is not something I would enjoy, as no matter what I did, the mk4 would just continually pull away in a straight line but overall we were lapping a good 2 seconds off the pace!

By the time I finally got through Declan had already managed to catch back up from the back of the grid following his start and I got wrong footed down to the old hairpin to lose the place and I had to wait till Goddards of the same lap to get through.

All was then starting to look a lot better till the next lap where I locked up going down to the chicance, nearly going off and lost the position to the mk4 AGAIN and 2 others! By the time I managed to get passed again it was too late to catch the next group of cars resulting in a very frustrating 8th place, when in reality 4th / 5th seemed on the cards.

After Race 1 we had the joys of being dyno checked which gave us a bit of a headache, showing that we were slightly down on power compared to the others at the front, leaving us with some head scratching to do in a very short time frame for Oulton Park.

For Race 2, the weather had stopped misbehaving but the track was still most definitely wet! Before the race started I had already gained 2 places, starting 10th due to mechanical issues for other cars that were due to start ahead of me. I went for the same tactic as race 1, taking the outside line and picking up a position on the opening lap slotting in behind Bysouth in the 888 car.

The next lap I tried to take the place into the chicane but resulted in getting crowded out at the Melbourne loop, until the following lap where an incident at the chicance wrong-footed Bysouth and Stott, resulting in taking 2 places in 1 corner, moving me into 6th.

The next lap was a really clean lap but the track was drying more and more, and as it did I could see Langridge in car 1 catching me lap after lap, the full wet set up on the car was seemingly struggling in the drying conditions and it wasn't long before Langridge was through taking 6th place with ease.

From there I just tried to bring it home and crossed the line a fairly hard fought 7th, which all things considered wasn't too bad for a recovery drive!

Overall the weekend felt again like a bit of a missed opportunity but it gives us yet further direction to go down improving the car for Oulton Park!

Being the home race it was also amazing to see some friends and sponsors at the circuit supporting me throughout a chaotic days of racing!

Now we focus on the short gap between Donington and Oulton to try and further figure out what we are missing, but every day feels like a step closer.

See you at Oulton!

Jack