Edward Pearson endured a challenging weekend on track as the GB3 Championship partnered by the BRDC headed to Silverstone for the second meeting of the season.
Edward made the trip to the home of the British Grand Prix in confident mood on the back of a podium finish on his series debut at Oulton Park, which was also the first top-three result of his single-seater career.
Although he had previously competed at Silverstone in both the Ginetta Junior Championship and British F4, Edward was competing on the full Grand Prix layout for the first time.
Two days of testing ahead of the weekend provided valuable track time in both the wet and dry, with Saturday’s qualifying session then taking place in treacherous conditions due to persistent rain that would fall throughout the day.
Wrestling his Fortec Motorsport-run car around the 3.6 mile circuit, Edward was able to post the 17th quickest time - earning a place on row eight of the grid for race one when a grid penalty elsewhere moved him up a spot.
The poor weather conditions would continue into race one, leaving Edward to battle against limited visibility from the moment the action got underway.
Shuffled back to 20th in the early laps, Edward would rise back to 18th place at the finish to bring home a points finish.
Edward’s second-best time from qualifying would be good enough for 15th on the grid for race two, which was held in more favourable conditions on Sunday.
Unfortunately, any chance of a strong result was ended by contact from James Hedley on the second lap, which would ultimately require him to make an unscheduled visit to the pits and resulted in a 21st place finish.
The reverse grid final race would see Edward starting from the second row of the grid, but due to a technical problem he would struggle for outright pace compared to the quicker cars behind and was shuffled back down the order to 15th place at the finish.
Track limits penalties for other drivers would promote him back to twelfth in the end results, with Edward now turning his focus toward round three at Spa next month.
"There is no getting away from the fact that it’s been a tough weekend at Silverstone," he said. "On the back of the podium finish at Oulton Park, I was hoping to try and fight for some strong results this weekend but for various reasons, things just didn’t go my way."
"Motorsport is full of highs and lows and it’s just a shame that Silverstone was one of the lows. However, there are still things that we have been able to learn this weekend that will benefit us in the rounds to come, so we’ve just got to put this one behind us, reset, and then look to come out fighting when we head to Spa."
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