Edward Pearson ensured that his first season in the GB3 Championship presented by the BRDC ended on a high with a fine podium finish at Donington Park.
Edward headed into the season finale bidding to fight back from a challenging weekend at Zandvoort seven days earlier, where he had been firmly out of luck at the wheel of his Fortec Motorsport-run car.
Pre-event testing on Thursday saw Edward post the 17th fastest time, but he was unable to work on bettering that on Friday - his 17th birthday - when poor weather conditions resulted in track action being cancelled.
Heading into qualifying, Edward was hopeful of pushing into the top 15, but a tricky session would leave him 21st on the grid for both races one and two of the weekend.
Avoiding drama ahead on lap one of the opening race, Edward jumped into 17th before then clearing Costa Toparis shortly after an early safety car.
Pushing hard on the restart, Edward then moved up into 14th when Michael Shin and Oliver Stewart clashed on the exit of the final corner.
Another solid opening lap in race two saw Edward move up into the top 18 where he would run throughout - briefly swapping places in the closing stages with race one rival Toparis.
Taking the flag in P18, Edward was then promoted a place post-race when Shin was given a penalty for exceeding track limits.
Starting the season finale from the front row of the reverse grid, Edward dropped to third on the run to turn one after Gerrard Xie blasted through into the lead before becoming embroiled in a battle with Patrick Heuzenroeder for second.
Losing momentum trying to get ahead at the Old Hairpin on lap three, Edward lost a spot to Nico Christodoulou to sit fourth when the safety car was deployed to recover a car from the gravel.
When the action resumed, Edward took advantage of Christodoulou and Heuzenroeder almost coming together whilst dicing for second place to dive inside the pair at the hairpin and move up into second spot before the safety car was called back out, with the race - and the season - ultimately ending under caution.
It means Edward ends the season 19th in the points, with the race three result being his best in the series to date.
“Ending the season with my best result is a great way to round out the year,” he said. “After such a tough weekend at Zandvoort, I came here looking to bounce back and I’m really proud of how the whole team has performed.
“Qualifying on Saturday left us on the back foot a bit and I think that was partly down to the lost track time on Friday. I hoped to be higher on the grid, but we made progress in the first two races and then race three was great.
“Had we been able to get restarted then I might have been able to push for the win, but second is a really solid performance to finish the season and is something to take into 2024.”
댓글