Endurance Tested Under Pressure

Photo from the first round this year here at Silverstone after a tow back to pits on the qualifying session

We arrived at Silverstone for the last race of the BRSCC Supersport Endurance Championship of 2025 going in with a four point lead. After a rocky start earlier in the year, three recent wins on the bounce turned our season right around, but the pressure was building as we wondered if our spell of good fortune would run out....and four consecutive wins felt like a huge ask, especially with our races being two hour endurance races. This time we were racing on the 1.6 mile National circuit which hopefully would be a little kinder on the car.

Me and dad had gone over #AudreyTheAudi on the driveway over a couple of weekends in preparation, checking fluids, oil and filter changes, servicing brakes, and making a couple of modifications to the breather hose set up after a small oil leak appeared on the last outing at Brands Hatch. New tyres were mounted by our efficient friends at Shaw Tyres & Exhausts,.... and we were ready to give the Clubman A final decider our very best shot.

We arrived on Friday night with the car transported again by Charlie, a valued and proud member of our 2025 race family. I was straight off to sleep after we got the Audi TT unloaded and a few tools into the garage with dad, making sure of a decent night’s sleep before race day. The schedule was stacked, with scrutineering of the car starting early, driver briefing, then qualifying at 10.50am, and the two hour race straight after lunch break. My dad stayed up and unloaded the rest of the tools, spares, and equipment to save time and an easier start to the morning.

Saturday morning came and we got Audrey up to scrutineering bay, returning to the garage and making a plan for qualifying before going to driver briefing. The plan was to do what we could in the half hour qualy on old tyres, preserving the new ones for the long race by running them for just a couple of laps. I was feeling confident here, we had decent pace earlier in the year on the international circuit, and we have managed to put Audrey on pole in class plus scored fastest laps at most of the other rounds so far.....

But once again #AudreyTheAudi had other ideas. I could tell from the first burst that she was very flat, slow on the straights and holding back on power. After pulling in and deciding there was nothing visually obvious and no quick fix, we accepted our fate, completed the mandatory laps and took the top off the new tyres. We had actually qualified a very disappointing second to last, and worryingly five whole seconds off the pace. Plus due to not getting a lap in at full speed the race tyre starting pressures were going to be an educated guess.

As soon as Audrey was back in the garage we set about diagnosing the problem. Luckily for us we had our "man of the hour" Elliot with us who had already helped us to save our season more than once this year. With the help of our garage neighbours TSR Performance and we discovered that we had a faulty crank and noc sensors. Elliot immediately set to work dismantling the inlet manifold that these parts hide underneath, while we sourced the replacements from Adam who has saved our race day more than once this year, TT Centre Parts (thanks for all your help and advice throughout the season). The rest of the team helping Elliot as much as we could, and also getting our usual race preparations completed to give us the best chance of being ready to go again when we were called to the assembly area.

The qualifying set back just added to the pressure as the time ticked by with engine parts lay on the garage floor. The tense hour and a half passed quickly and we were all relieved Audrey was running again with literally minutes to spare. Elliot took her for a very quick test drive around the paddock as the race call was heard, and as he pulled back into the garage we swapped places in the driver seat, the last of the race checks were done, tyres, radios, extinguisher,... and I drove around to the assembly lane to join the back of the grid, staring at all the cars in front and commenting to my dad at how far down the line we were. Thinking positively he pointed out that there were slightly less cars to pass as the grid was a little smaller than usual with seventeen cars.

The points margin between me and P2 going into this round meant to keep the championship result in my own hands it had to be a win, rather than needing our rivals to have issues and score a poor result.

It felt like a long wait, and I was nervous. I just couldn’t let the team down after they had all worked so incredibly hard over the last two hours,....and the two seasons building up to this moment. But Audrey was running and seemed ok so far as we could tell on the short drive over,.....

With the wait over, the marshalls signalled us out, and we all pulled onto the Silverstone circuit. Even from driving the formation lap I could tell that we were back to full power. We completed the lap behind the safety car, and I had made a plan to go straight for the inside off the rolling start,... but I got boxed in, so made a quick decision and change of plan to go around the outside of turn one instead. My gamble payed off as the cars bunched up a little on the apex. I managed to clear a lot of the cars in Class B and C on the first lap, planning to get myself up behind my championship rival as early as possible.

By the second lap of the race I already had my target in sight with one car between us coming down the Wellington straight, but the combination of cold tyres and something on the track in the braking zone at Brooklands meant my favoured late move had to wait. After a good exit from the last corner Luffield and a brief battle coming through Woodcote, down the start finish straight I managed to get past before turn one. Then straight to work on passing my Class A rival, after a couple of attempts over the next two corners I managed to get past and make it stick.

Now I was on a mission, already into the top ten and trying to pull as big a lead as I possibly could before our first of two mandatory stops. This stint went surprisingly well and left us building a decent sized gap to make our pit stop.

We had planned to stay out as long as possible but through the long right hander Copse on lap 49 I had the 'oil pressure low' light give me a scare flashing on momentarily. I immediately relayed this to the team and backed off a little for a couple of laps. As soon as the team were ready I was signalled into the pits at 55 minutes of running, a little earlier than we had planned. Once the refuelling was done Audrey had a couple of extra checks and there were no signs of an oil leak, so she took a top up and I was already back in the seat and ready to go. Although the stop had still been smooth despite the extra checks, it was half a minute longer than optimum, however I still came out in 7th position. After the inspection we were relieved there was no visible leak, and Elliot was confident that the oil light flashing on for a moment was only slosh due to the prolonged forces of the long right hand corner. I pushed on in my second stint pulling an increasing lead and ran most of it in fifth place over all.

There were a few ongoing discussions about fuel levels and changing the timing of our second stop. On the pit wall the obvious decision was made as a precaution by the team, this was to split the time remaining in half to reduce the risk of any oil starvation issue. We would again check and top up oil during the stop, and reduce the remaining refuelling time enough to allow for this, keeping our stop as close to the ideal three minutes as possible. Logically less precious seconds lost in the pits meant less pressure to push so hard on track, and we could then sensibly manage our pace, giving us the best chance to make it to the end of the race without issues.

I boxed again after an hour and a half of total running on lap 78, this stop was quicker, 3mins 14s even with the oil top up thanks to our amazing team. The final run to the finish went just as smoothly as the stop did, but the last twenty minutes seemed to take forever and the countdown made everyone increasingly anxious, (especially after the oil scare and the terrible luck earlier in the year).

So after two hours and 102 laps it was a big relief to eventually see the chequered flag having just gained one more place near the end. We had finished comfortably leading Clubman Class A, and an amazing season high of 4th place overall. Earned an extra point for fastest lap in class too (5Th O/A of the race), with a 105.323 and average speed of 90mph.

All this was enough to take the class championship and also third place in the overall season standings. Have really enjoyed racing in the Supersport Endurance this year, an organised and fair series, and we have visited all the iconic British tracks, well done and thanks go to BRSCC.

It has been a long hard season that had started with a lot of promise, and we have managed to fill it with many special memories. From out qualifying, and almost beating Colin Turkington at the season opener here at Silverstone.... my unforgettable first solo podium coming 2nd behind Rob Boston on my 18th birthday after a very, very, long night on the spanners. From the lows, the despair of mechanical failures, to the first win..... and that dream summer race meeting at Croft, flying home for the weekend to take another win and the extra point for fastest lap, putting us back in the hunt for the championship.

After all the things we have had thrown at us this year, to achieve something that back in June looked impossible gave the whole team a huge feeling of accomplishment. It still doesn't feel real that our luck actually held out for a change, and our epic turnaround with maximum points from the last four rounds feels like a very special achievement.

And so for Saturday night we decided to bring on a much deserved celebration and raise a glass to my first ever championship title win in cars, ending the race year on a very high note!! It made it worth every second we all spent fixing and improving things, getting knocked down and then picking ourselves up to go again.

A huge thank you goes out to my sponsors this year, in particular Critical Power and Nürburgring Tours to keep going having faith in me to get the results, and providing the tools for me to go for it...Charlie and Carla for transporting Audrey,.. everyone who has helped us to stretch our race budget, Shaw tyres, Questmead, and Graph X customers, Bowmans Tow Centre, Supergood Bikers. Racing With Autism, and everyone else for their support, & the kind messages of encouragement, they mean a lot, especially when things weren't going our way. And of course my parents, without who none of this would ever work.  

Winning this championship means so much after a long and increasingly difficult couple of years in the 2hr endurance races as a small racing family, renewing my sense of excitement in my head for the future, and a fresh ambition to put myself to work over winter to see if we can keep this train rolling in 2026. Really hope we can, we have come such a long way and are no strangers to a challenge.

So grateful for this journey,

Sandro#19

BRSCC Supersport Endurance Clubman A Champion