Edward Pearson bounced back from a challenging weekend in Hungary to score his best result of the GB3 Championship powered by the BRDC season at Zandvoort.
The Dutch circuit was playing host to the third and final overseas meeting of the campaign, with Edward eager to try and return to the kind of form that had seen him score a top ten finish at Spa in the first of those three events.
Preparing to visit Zandvoort for the second time, Edward enjoyed a solid start to the weekend in pre-event testing as he went 14th quickest during Thursday testing, and was also in the top fifteen during Friday running before the arrival of rain.
The wet conditions continued into Saturday’s qualifying session which would prove to be frustrating for Edward as he had to settle for the 19th best time to leave him back on row ten for the opening race of the weekend. His second best time in the session meanwhile would set him up with an 18th place start for race two.
Whilst the whole field took to the track on slick tyres for the opening race, rain was starting to fall as the lights went out, with Edward one of a number of drivers to dive in for wet tyres at the end of the opening lap.
Unfortunately for the Fortec Motorsport racer, the rain would prove to be nothing more than a localised shower with the circuit drying out as the race wore on, leaving Edward on the wrong tyre and resulting in him finishing a lap down in 17th spot.
Dry conditions greeted Edward and his rivals for the second race, with the youngster able to avoid an incident at the start that saw the action halted to allow three stricken cars to be removed from the circuit.
When the race resumed, Edward immediately settled into 15th spot and then made up two spots on the second lap when Arthur Rogeon and Louis Sharp both ran off track - bringing out the safety car.
The earlier race stoppage allied to the caution period meant the race would run to time rather than to the scheduled number of laps and when the action resumed, Edward was on a charge and within a lap, had moved up into the top ten.
Edward then moved into ninth place on lap six and would retain his spot through to the finish before being promoted a spot when one of the drivers ahead was handed a ten-second time penalty - giving Edward his best result of the season.
The final race of the weekend would be an action-packed affair with a number of incidents that saw drivers running off track through the gravel. Edward however stayed out of trouble during a race-long battle with James Hedley as he worked his way up to 13th place by the finish.
That six place gain should have resulted in a strong haul of points from the weekend but an inadvertent breach of the parc fermé regulations by the team after the race saw both Edward and team-mate Colin Queen excluded from the result.
Edward sits 17th in the points ahead of the next event at Silverstone on the weekend of 27/28 July.
“We had really good race pace this weekend but we were let down by qualifying and we have to work to nail that going forwards,” he said. “We took a gamble with the weather in the opening race that unfortunately didn’t go our way, but in the position we were in on the grid, it was a gamble that was worth taking. Had the rain continued, we’d have been in the box seat…
Race two was great and it really showed the potential that is in the car, and to score my best result of the season from 18th on the grid was massively promising. Unfortunately in race three, I couldn’t really make the most of the speed in the car as Hedley was defending like mad in front of me and I have no doubt that we could have been up in the top ten again.
Obviously, things didn’t end as we hoped post-race but what happened has happened, and we just move forwards and look ahead to Silverstone.”
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