Duckhams Yuasa Racing enjoys forward progress on British Grand Prix weekend
Duckhams Yuasa Racing with Team Parker made an appearance in front of 450,000 fans at Silverstone at the weekend (July 7-9), with a guest entry for Adam Smalley in the Porsche Supercup at the British Grand Prix.
Currently leading the Porsche Carrera Cup GB standings, Adam relished the chance to test himself against the best of the marque’s one-make racers in his iconic Duckhams-liveried Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car, thanks to the support of the team’s sponsors and partners – several of whom specially joined for the weekend.
Despite being on home soil, it was the first time this year that the Porsche GB Junior Driver was able to compete on the full Silverstone Grand Prix circuit, with the Carrera Cup only racing on the shorter National layout.
In the single free practice session, held late on Friday afternoon, Adam finished 14th quickest and, despite finding an impressive nine tenths of a second in qualifying, would end up in the same position, just 0.9s from pole position in a closely fought 30-minute session. As well as on track action, he also made appearances on both the Main Stage in the Fan Zone and at the British Racing Drivers' Club, representing the BRDC SuperStars programme, which he is part of.
Heading out for the final track action before the Grand Prix on Sunday, Adam had a good initial launch off the line but, surprised by the amount of grip he had compared to what he is used to in the Carrera Cup, stalled the car and fell back an agonising 14 places to 28th on the opening lap.
Refusing to let that get on top of him, the Lancastrian then put in a fantastic drive as he scythed his way through the field, gaining back a remarkable 16 places to cross the line 12th and setting lap times which were comparable to the top ten drivers.
A busy stretch continues for Adam as he now heads to the Goodwood Festival of Speed with Porsche GB, where he will take part in the fastest time shootout and aim to once again wow fans as he hustles a GT3 Cup car up the famous hill climb, having been one of the star performers there last year.
He, Duckhams Yuasa Racing with Team Parker, and teammate Harry Foster will return to Porsche Carrera Cup GB action over the weekend of August 11-13, as the series heads north to the undulating Knockhill in Scotland to open the second half of the 2023 season.
Adam Smalley G – 14, R – 12
Quote
“It was definitely a challenging weekend and we always knew it was going to be, racing against the world fastest Porsche drivers. Qualifying 14th wasn't where we wanted to be, but if we look at the quality of the drivers in front of us it was always going to be difficult.
“The start was all my fault. I got the initial launch off the line and then stalled. There's so much grip on the track I just didn't anticipate how grippy the surface was. I brought it up as normal absolutely fine, then stalled. I'm absolutely gutted as that dropped me down to 28th, though I then came back to 12th.
"It was a good recovery drive. It wasn't the optimal result because I couldn't capitalise on the incidents ahead like other people did, but overall, it's not a bad result. I showed the pace to run at the top which is promising and made some good overtakes on the way through. I also want to thank everyone for giving me this opportunuty.”