The third round of the Racing Club International Diamond Drive Cup took the Queens’ Design drivers to the iconic Silverstone Circuit for a long 90 minutes race. With the forecast teasing a bit of rain, the right strategy was essential to achieve success for the team to find themselves on the podium again. The team decided to stop halfway through, opting for a dry setup due to no wind being present forecasting no weather change. Qualifying was a tricky session, and although the conditions never became optimal, the lap times were still very quick. Aenore Rose once again found herself in pole position with a 1:57.790. Mia Rose lined up beside her with a 1:58.407 with Kainé Luna trailing right behind the Roses with a 1:59.017. Ruby Acosta had a tough qualifying session, settling for 6th with a 1:59.300.
The start of the race proved to be chaotic; while Aenore and Mia lined up 1st and 2nd respectively out of turn 1, Kainé had a less than optimal start off of the line, being overtaken by Sara Dove while finding herself challenged by Nicole Fox. Only the leading duo found themselves out of trouble for the time being, comfortably creating a good gap to the final podium position.
The first stint became a heated battle between the 4 remaining drivers in the Pro class vying for the last podium position. Kainé had performed some outstanding driving, piloting her way out of potentially race ending accidents. Ruby kept in 6th place, but was latched onto the rear wing of 5th place driver Nicole. It only came down to an accident involving Nicole and Sara in Vale in which the two Queens’ Design drivers could manoeuvre their way past to the 3rd and 4th spots. Ruby had sustained damage but it was minimal, not leading to any performance degradation.
Unfortunately during the first stint, Mia chose to retire from 2nd position due to sickness, leading to the team’s only DNF. We wish for her to get well soon and hopefully return as quickly as she can for her next race.
With all the drivers taking their mandatory stops for tires, Sara and Nicole served their time penalties due to the previous accident and Sara performing an unsafe rejoin, leaving Kainé and Ruby with a good cushion in their podium positions into their 2nd and final stint. While Kaine had managed to pull away from the two recovering drivers, Ruby was locked into a hunt from Nicole, doing her best to pull off a great recovery drive overcoming a 15 seconds penalty. The rain never came, leaving all drivers with the right choice of dry slicks to finish off the race. Aenore had once again led the race from start to finish, showing her sheer pace throughout the 90 minutes and taking her third win of the season. Manoeuvring her way through slower traffic and managing her track cut warnings the Frenchwoman found herself with a convincing 77 seconds gap to Kainé. Kainé herself had managed a good cushion to position herself 2nd, proving her worth as a skilled driver. Ruby managed the gap, tire degradation and pressure, finding herself crossing the line with her first podium in 3rd. The gap had just gone down to under half a second in an exciting finish with Nicole in a wild hunt. Mia takes her drop round, with still a good chance to challenge Aenore.
Next week's race takes us to the temple of speed at Monza where the weather forecast is looking very wet!
(text by Ruby Acosta, translation and pictures by Aenore Rose)