2025 Miata Trophy Round 7 Brands Hatch Review: The Finale

Before the Brands Hatch weekend, I went into the championship finale with a very slim chance of 3rd in the championship, but in all seriousness, we were just focused on having a good weekend to finish off the season in style, hoping to take advantage of some changeable and challenging conditions that were forecast for the weekend!

The last time I did a Finale at Brands Hatch in changeable conditions was 2021, and well, it didn't go as I had planned that weekend thats for sure, but at some point, my luck around the Indy circuit has got to change right?

The final Friday of the year was again an open pitlane test day, with plenty of opportunity to get some laps in around what was a consistently wet Brands Hatch circuit. The surprise though, was how warm it was!

We started the day back on the baseline set up and with new rear dampers after the last set had failed at Cadwell , the car immediately felt fantastic. The very wet conditions just seemed to bring the car alive.

Everything on Friday honestly went so well and the car felt unreal, we tried a few changes to the car and a lot of experimenting with the wet lines at Brands, especially on the new sections of tarmac. It got to a point in the middle of the day where I did a 28 lap stint, just becasue I was genuinely loving driving the car and the balance was spot on... We felt more than ready for Saturday, with new tyres for the wet / damp conditions we expected throughout the weekend looking to help us even more!

Saturday morning we were ready to go. The track was still pretty wet from the overnight rain as we headed up to the assembly area for qualifying. The first qualifying session of the day was out, with bright sun beaming down on the circuit.

In all honesty, I was slightly worried about the weather and the circuit drying, but what no one saw coming was a massive blanket of fog that desended on the circuit within minutes. The qualifying session before that was still on-going was forced to finish behind the safety car, and we were ordered to get into the cars ready to go.

Our session started behind the safety car and we continued to drive around behind the safety car and just as it started to look a bit clearer, more fog came down and I returned the the pits.

The result was, the grid position would be decided by Championship order, resulting in me starting 4th and 7th for Race 1 and Race 2 respectively.

Race 1 was still very damp with a bit of mist still in the air but as we got up to the assembly area, it became clear very quickly that we would be out on the track very very soon! From what was looking like a day where we might not even get to race on safety grounds, we were rolling out onto the grid with no fog in sight!

The start however did not go to plan at all. Having thought the new tyres would help in the slippery conditions, they seemed to do the exact opposite. Dropping down to 7th through the first 2 corners with 0 traction, the great balance I had on Friday in sightly worse conditions had gone, and seemed to have very little grip in the greasy conditions.

By lap 2 the safety car was out which did give me a bit of chance to tyre and see if scrubbing the tyres would help bring them to life.

The restart was good, and with Will Morris and John Langridge battling in front, I managed to sneak up the inside of Langridge into Surtees corner. I had to then defend the position from Langridge into Paddock Hill bend, initially losing the position on entry but regaining the place on the exit of the corner. It was still very clear, I just didn't have the grip or pace to go with the front pack.

I managed to maintain osition over the next few laps until I came under pressure from Oli Allwood, initially holding on to the place around the outside of Paddock Hill Bend and then again at Clearways, before the following lap Allwood made the move stick. However, before we crossed the line, the red flag came out, so although I lost the position on circuit, I came home in 6th on the road and 5th in class, with Aidan in the mk4 for the weekend.

Race 2 the circuit had miraculously pretty much dried out! It was all action before the race, with us changing tyres twice before eventually deciding to go onto the full dry tyres and dry set up. A bit of a gamble with a few damp patches but with not a lot to lose, we rolled the dice to see if we could luck into an adavantage.

The warm up lap it became clear it still wasn't quite ready for fully dry set up though and the car especially into Clearways was a real handful.

After initially not having a terrible start, I managed to maintain 7th and defend it till Aidan came through in the mk4, driving past me in a straight line in the far more powerful mk4, this then opened the door for Cossins and Blake-Baldwin to dive up the inside into Paddock Hill bend, once again being completely screwed by there being a car much faster in a straight line on the grid.

The following lap, Blake-Baldwin and Cossins were battling and I managed to gain a place back on Cossins due to their fighting, all was going okay, until I was then hit in the rear corner going into Druids, losing me 2 places just as the safety car came out.

Having got a good restart, I found myself again battling with Cossins before exiting Clearways and once again getting driven passed in a straight line by the other Mk4, who would then procede to drive everyone backwards but with no real chance of overtaking because of the straighline advantage.

Eventually the car started to feel a bit quicker as the circuit dried more, but it was all too late, gaining one place to Drew Fletcher across the line, ending the year a very disappointing P13.

Unfortunatly the season didn't end as we all wanted it to, but it was a weekend where we left nothing on the table and gave it everything we could.

Its been a long year with a lot of learning. New championship, new team, and probably most importantly a different set of tyres to get used to, and although the results haven't always shown what we were capable of achieving, its been a great year and most importantly full of mostly smiles and everyone getting stuck in!

I'd like to thank all my sponsors, EPTA Projects, Lex-Tools, EdsonGFX, Mazspec, Beaded Seat Company, ProWear Attire & Melliard Motorsport, as well as Airbourne Colours / Graphics for helping with all the bodywork before the start of the season.

Also, I would like to thank Hills Motorsport for welcoming me into the team for this season and their tireless effort to keep improving the car on the race weekends... while most other teams would be relaxing for the evenings on Friday, they would always be stringing the cars and working well into the night to make sure all of their cars were as well prepared as possible for some great racing!

But the biggest mention of all has to go to my Dad. Motorsport is never easy and honestly not only this year, but the past 9 years would not have been possible without the genius building and maintaining all of my race cars. It says something whenever a scrutineer looks at my car, they always make some comment on the quality of the car and how well maintained it is.

Not only that but at the start of the season I was left in a pretty difficult spot financially which ended up with him having to come to all the race weekends with me to help with the car on the weekends, something we had never done before, especially as he has to go and hide in the van and not watch the races from nerves. But we made it work, and made it part of whats been a great season (although he might have been thinking otherwise when he was digging gravel out of the car rushing before race 1 at Oulton, sorry!).

As for next year, one things for sure, I will be doing more driver coaching, but as for racing it's still very up in the air. One things for sure, I have had 9 great years of racing and this one although its not been one of the most successful, has been one of the most enjoyable.

Till next time...

Jack