2026 Miata Trophy Round 2 Silverstone: Weather Chaos

One thing is for sure, I always love a Silverstone weekend!

Silverstone is a place full of amazing memories for me, having worked there for many years in the past, and met some truly great people there along the way, its a place that always somehow feels like home to me.

Round 2 of the Miata Trophy was no different for me. Friday Morning arriving at the circuit to a lot of friendly faces from the past always makes me smile. But after a quick catch up, it was straight the way down to business of getting stuck in with the race weekend and trying to get the car set up as well as we possibly could for the race day on Sunday.

Unfortunately right from the get go on the Silverstone weekend, we were a bit on the back foot. As the test day was only on the National circuit (alongside some pretty cool and LOUD historic race cars) and the race day itself was on the full Grand Prix circuit. Resulting in me only seeing 2/3rds of the circuit for the first time this year on the new Yokohama tyres on Sunday morning!

But we preservered and got ourselves set up for the weekend ahead, and with a few balance tweaks through the day, we felt in a pretty good spot heading into Sunday, albeit knowing that the qualifying tow was going to be everything in terms of lap time.

After a few last minute footage reviews and some data work, it was time to head out for qualifying. As I pulled out of the garage though the car definitely didn't feel the same as it had on Friday, with us seemingly having picked up some sort of electrical issue that was affecting how the throttle was picking up, but after a bit of a wire wiggle all seemed to be good and ready to go, so I set off for qualifying, weirdly not being first one in the queue.

With Silverstone being such a long circuit, the short 15mins session really doesn't provide much opportunity to string some laps together, especially when the tow can be work 1 or more seconds per lap, and the story of my session was one of permanently being tripped over or hunting for a tow that never then materialised. With my best lap being my second lap out on the track, which lost me 0.6 of a second having been blocked on the exit of the final corner.

The result was P7 in qualifying so starting 7th for Race 1 and 9th for Race 2.

After an initially slow get away from the line, I managed to get a good run out of turn 1 as the others in front fought for position, and move myself up to 6th place before taking 5th into Stowe corner! Momentum was with me all the way to the complex where some questionable moving under braking put pay to any momentum I had, dropping me to 6th and battling to hold onto the position.

Lap 2 saw what I thought was a good move into Stowe corner turn into a nightmare, as I took the position only for the car I'd overtaken to retake the position off the circuit and then allow another through into Vale corner, momentarily dropping me to 7th before I retook 6th but all the while losing time.

From there the next few laps would follow a very similar theme and just bad luck seemed to be dropping me down eventually to 9th place, but there was one thing looming that made me realise this was going to be a very long and chaotic race... Rain!

As I gained one place through Copse corner, heading down hangar straight towards Stowe, the wipers had to come on and from here on out, the pure brilliant chaos of Mazda racing ensued and after a couple of laps of Langridge and me going side by side through most corners, everything came to a head as the leaders all went off through Abbey corner and rejoined at Village corner, everyone stacked up and the race truly came alive. As everything played out I entered Copse corner 3 wide with McAlpin and Langridge, with Brown just in front, and a snap of Oversteer from Brown forced him off the circuit as I went around the outside of Langridge and taking 6th place, a position I would then hold for the remainder of the race after a brief battle for 5th with McAlpin.

All in all, a successful-ish race albeit frustrated at what might have been.

Race 2 couldn't be more chaotic right? Well just before we headed down to the assembly area the rain that had been with us most of the afternoon had disappeared and the re-appeared just as the circuit looked to be properly drying! It became decision time very quickly and the stress of what tyres to choose, and what set up to put on the car was ramping up and up.

In the end, we decided to go for a slightly dryer set up than was recommended to us, and initially on the green flag lap it felt like the wrong decision. The circuit was still very damp but the sun was beaming down.

The first few corners were very tricky, and as I went through Maggots and Becketts there were Mazdas off the road and spinning everywhere! The result of avoiding the chaos meant I got a good run down Hangar straight and a massive tow taking me up to 6th before losing a place to Cossins through the loop onto the Wellington straight and then Allwood with the tow down into Brooklands, I eventually crossed the line on lap 1 in 9th, exactly where I started!

By the end of lap 2 I was back up to 8th and then 7th by lap 3 as the car started to slowly feel like the grip level of the circuit was going to work its way towards me, taking 6th from Langridge on lap 4, everything was feeling pretty positive as I was in the pount seats to watch Lee, Allwood and Antrobus scrap it out in front for 3rd place.

Once Allwood and Antrobus had a little squabble I inheritted 5th place and maintained it to the final lap, where going into Luffield, Allwood and Lee went side by side, I breifly took 4th and was getting a good tow from Lee to the line until he moved over to tow Allwood over the line, and under the radar, McAlpin had got a huge run from the 3 of us tripping over one another, and he sneaked past me at the line by 0.009 of a second. I finished 6th, 0.3 away from the podium! A proper Mazda racing finish!

A frustrating weekend in terms of results yet again. I left the circuit feeling like the car was there or there abouts to really race at last, but just the feeling of being so close but no cigar was a tough one to take.

We move onto a circuit I have very little experience at next as we take on the GT World weekend at Brands Hatch on the Grand Prix circuit. Last year when we visited it was one hell of a learning curve, with the circuit being probably the most spectacular places I have ever driven around, so I cannot wait to see how fast we are on these Yokohamas... and hopefully we might even have a live stream to follow the action!

But for now its time to check the car over and get ready for the next battle! See you at Brands!

Jack