Silverstone brings more silverware for Team Viking
18 September 2019
Team Viking play it cool in the four-hour race, to take third place at Silverstone on the National Circuit.
It was another successful weekend for Team Viking in the Fun Cup as they claimed their third podium of the season, and continue to build towards an overall podium finish at the end of the season.
It was a strong start to the weekend for the two drivers in Friday’s testing session. The team honed a solid strategy, mechanic Aaron fine-tuned the car, and drivers Nick Nunn and Mark Holme finalised their lines in preparation for a big weekend of racing.
Viking were drawn 13th on the grid, with driver Holme to take the first stint. In Qualifying the top 14 cars were under a second apart, so the strategy was to play it cool, focus, and wait for other drivers to make the mistakes.
In his first stint, Holme moved from P13 up to P6, with the racing playing out as predicted – other teams’ driver errors left the door open for opportunity after opportunity to move up the field. Holme was driving with confidence, keeping up with the front of the pack, with a significant gap behind him that afforded the team a ‘wait and see’ approach.
When Nunn went out for his first stint, the team had pushed their way up to second, but Nunn found himself back down in third. “We had a different fuel strategy to the other front runners,” said Holme. “The front two were on a very similar strategy so were getting tows off each other’s slipstreams. We were out of time with the front two and we were 18-seconds behind P1.”
Nunn and Holme kept pushing to regain a second place position, but couldn’t quite close the margin. The Viking drivers later reflected that there might have been an element of ‘overdriving’ to try and catch the two leading cars. As the racing came to a close, there was a substantial 30-second gap between Team Viking and fourth place – enough of a margin so to solely focus on keeping pace with the race leaders. When Viking passed the chequered flag in third, they were just seconds off P1 – overall a fantastic drive and a great result.
“There were no safety cars called out, it was like a four-hour sprint race,” said Holme. “It was great to be on the podium and collect a lot of championship points. Our rivals were close, but going into the last round we have a chance of finishing third in the championship. We just need good pace and some good luck!”.
The final round of the 2019 Fun Cup season is a four-hour race that takes place at Oulton Park on Saturday 12 October.