2025 Miata Trophy Round 6 Cadwell Park Review: The Joy of Miata Racing...

Who doesn't love a trip to Cadwell Park?!

Every time I see Cadwell on the championship calendar I get excited for that weekend! The circuit is utterly relentless and so demanding in every aspect, both on the car performance and the driver! Its narrow, difficult to overtake, ridiculously fast in places and technical in others, and racing in the Miata Trophy means that its also one of the most tightly contested race weekends of the year!

Friday testing was an open pitlane test day again like most of the Friday testings we have had this season, meaning plenty of laps and plenty of time to refine the car for the weekend, in between the odd stoppage here and there for the pesky floppy markers that seem be car magnets!

We initially went straight out on track to get an eye on the circuit conditions first thing in the morning to see if we were likely to have some damp patches for Qualifying that would be first thing on Saturday and just pick out the areas of the track that would remian damp if there was any moisture in the air from the night before. With a few patches through turn 1 and the final section through the Hall bends under the trees being especially slippery!

The following few morning runs seemed to go almost a bit too well though, the car felt really well balanced and the times were looking pretty solid as well, but it was very obvious the weekend was going to be extremely close between everyone.

However, in the afternoon, we seemed to develop a fairly chronic understeer issue as the circuit seemed to "grip up" and everyone went faster, I stayed at the same pace and seemed to be struggling to get the front end to stick until the last session of the day where we made a set up change and the car came back alive again!

Qualifying first thing on Saturday was bone dry from the get go, but the circuit temperature was obviously a fair bit cooler than what it had been at the end of Friday. Unlike most, my quickest laps came towards the end of the session, with me actually spending most of the session down in 8th place until lap 7 where I managed to gain 0.3seconds and jump up to 5th place.

But this only tells half the story. As my time put me only 0.05 away from 2nd! With 2nd to 6th place covered by less than 0.1 seconds! Never have I been in a session as closely fought as that in my life! Meaning the races would all be able the smallest of margins!

Going into race 1 I was feeling pretty confident if I got a good start then I could be well in with a shot at a podium position, but starting in 5th was actually the wrong side of the grid for Cadwell, which always makes the first sequence of corners tricky! But being honest, I didn't even get towards turn 1 before the issues started. I got a huge amount of wheel spin off the line and lost a lot of ground immediatley despite having the revs quite a bit lower than normal!

By the time I got to turn 1 I was already in 7th which I could only maintain through the opening exchanges! When we came around to complete lap 1 there was immediately a drive through penalty for Declan Lee come through though so I knew that was one position already in the bag.

On lap 4 though I had a big rear lock up into Park corner, forcing me to run wide and losing 7th on the road to Michael Knibbs, as I started to really struggle with the rear end of the car. The mistake also dropped me well off the back of the front pack which made the rest of the race a battle for 7th with Knibbsy.

Fortunately for me just a few laps later Knibbsy made the same mistake as me and I inheritted 7th back which by this point had already become 6th with Dec taking to the pitlane.

From there we started to pull in the pack for 2nd slowly, but it wasn't enough to close the gap enough to make the most of an incident where I eventually inheritted 5th from Allwood as he recovered back onto the circuit.

Race 2 I was actually looking forward to starting 6th, on the new patch of tarmac and on the more advantageous side of the grid for the opening lap... which soon went out the window after a post race 1 grid penalty for another driver promoted me to 5th place AGAIN!

Even after having even less revs on for the 2nd start I still got bags of wheelspin and pretty much everyone that started on the right hand side of the grid got away a lot better than the left!

After watching Knibbsy do his best EasyJet impression heading towards turn 1 I ended up dropping to 9th by turn 2... utterly disasterous start which would only get worse as I got caught up battling with Drew Fletcher through the Hall Bends as the front pack drove away within a few corners, I made the place into the 2nd to last corner but from there it was a case of trying everything to chase down the pack.

I eventaully managed to reel everyone back in but by this point, the strange oversteering issue I had encountered in race 1 came back to bite me even though we had made significant changes to the car to stop it from happening. The balance just really wasn't confidence inspiring and seemed inconsistent from lap to lap corner to corner when eventually 2 laps from the end I nearly went off all by myself through turn 1 and lost a huge amount of time!

The only saving grace to make anything positive from the race came at the expense of my team mate Will Morris who was clearly also struggling with his car as he ran wide several times, eventually handing me 7th on a plate as we went over the mountain!

All in all Cadwell although it is one of my favourite circuits, I couldn't help but leave very frustrated with the weekend we'd had. With the hopes of making some progress it felt like we were always slightly on the back foot, but we will take it on the chin and move forward ready for Brands Hatch in November for the last round of whats been an extremely fun season of racing!

At this point I would also like to say a massive congratulations to Aidan Hills for becoming the 2025 Miata Trophy Champion. He has utterly dominated this season and winning with a round to go is incredibly impressive in any championship, but in a one make series is more or less unheard of! I'm lucky enough to be part of the Hills Motorsport team and the work Aidan puts in day in day out to be at the top is exceptional. Congratulations Aidan.

Its a fairly big break now before the final round of the year and theres still plenty to play for especially with a high chance of there being some sweet November rain for the finale!

I have a few different things planned over the next few months that will involve something a little different to a Mazda to keep my eye in ready for Round 7!

See you at Brands

Jack