With over 370 historic racing cars in attendance, this year’s Historic Superprix at Brands Hatch celebrated the iconic British circuit’s steeped history with a weekend of high octane on track action. A new addition to the 2015 historic racing calendar, the Jaguar Heritage Challenge saw an array of pre-1966 E-Types, together with other famous models from the iconic British marque pitched against each other in a 40 minute race. Aiming for victory within the field, JD Classics campaigned two of their own racing lightweight Jaguar E-Types; JD Classics’ in-house driver Chris Ward took to the driver’s seat in the Aston Martin Racing Green E-Type recognised by its number plate ‘1196 WK’ whilst John Young drove the British Racing Green E-Type ’61 E’. With bright and sunny conditions for Saturday morning’s 25 minute qualifying session, both cars and drivers were ready to do battle. As the pit lane opened and the 22 car field made their onto the Grand Prix circuit, the JD E-Type of Chris Ward dominated the session from the very beginning producing a succession of fastest laps to take an unrivalled pole position. The British Racing Green E-Type of John Young also performed well qualifying in 4th place. With just half a second separating the front three sitting E-Types, Saturday afternoon’s race looked set to be an exciting one.
As the sunny and warm weather conditions continued into the afternoon, the Jaguar Heritage Challenge field lined up on the grid ahead of the start of the 40 minute race with the JD Classics Aston Martin Green E-Type sitting pretty in pole position. As Chris Ward led the field away from a standing start, he maintained position as the field headed down Paddock Hill. Getting away to a flying start, the fellow JD E-Type went round the outside of the pack to steal 3rd place from the E-Type of Martin Melling and Graeme Dodd. It wasn’t long before both JD E-Types were heading the field, John Young having moved up to 2nd place by Druids Corner and by the end of the first lap both cars were pulling away from the pack with a clear 5 second gap.
Once the pit window opened, John Young came in almost instantly to perform the mandatory 1 minute stop which, having run smoothly ‘61E’ returned to the track in 4th place. This, however soon rectified itself once other runners came in for their stop thus returning John Young to his second place standing. Next in was Chris Ward and the front running E-Type’s turn to come in for the compulsory stop. Having completed this flawlessly, the car maintained position returning to the front of the field. Remaining very much a two car race for the remainder of the 40 minutes, the JD Classics E-Types of Chris Ward and John Young took a 1-2 victory respectively just under a minute ahead of the third placed E-Type of Martin Melling and Graeme Dodd. Having enjoyed a dominant weekend at Brands Hatch, the JD Competition team now turn their attentions to Silverstone Classic later this month in a bid to replicate the success of this weekend’s results.
Speaking of the weekend’s results for JD Classics, MD Derek Hood said: “Another fantastic weekend of racing and a 1-2 result for JD Classics is a reflection of the hard work and commitment not only from the Competition Team but the company as whole. We are very proud to celebrate Jaguar in this new racing series for 2015 and hope to compete regularly in the future”.