GRANT STEAMROLLS THROUGH ILLNESS TO FOURTH AT ANGLESEY
George Grant fought off a bout of flu in fine style to secure a thrilling fourth place finish in the opening Max5 Championship race of the weekend at Anglesey.
Making a competitive return to Wales for the first time since his inaugural Max5 victory at Pembrey earlier in the year, Grant responded well after a gearbox problem during Friday testing compromised his preparations to qualify his Paul Sheard-run #69 Mazda MX-5 in eighth position. This would later become seventh when the invitational entry ahead of him was moved to the back of the grid.
As has become customary this season, conditions in race one were atrociously slippery, with the cars ahead leaving rooster-tails of spray in their wake for the Kingston-on-Thames ace and the chasing pack to negotiate. However, Grant has proven time and again that he thrives in the rain and stormed through the pack to take fourth, just three seconds off the podium.
“The conditions couldn’t have been better for me,” he reported. “The amount of wet practice I’ve had not only this year but specifically at Anglesey with Race of Remembrance just played into my hands. I qualified eighth, seventh on the grid and it was then deemed to be a wet race, which allowed us to run on the softer tyre compound.“I’ve used them in the dry in the early part of the season and they’re fantastic – the tread on them is pretty minimal actually, but not only could I grip more despite the fact that there was hardly any tread on it, but I was able to steamroller through the field. It was a fantastic race for me – the car performed unbelievably in the wet conditions on the softer tyres, which clearly suited my driving style.”
Race two was dry and meant Grant had to go with the harder rubber, due to a mid-season rule change. Lacking confidence on the different compound, he fell backwards to eighth overall and sixth in class. “The first three laps were shockers, I was all over the place,” Grant confessed. “Rightly or wrongly, I’ve come to the conclusion that the harder tyres don’t suit my driving style. Everybody is complaining about understeer, but they seem to know how to deal with it, whereas I find it very frustrating. If I had put on a set of the soft compound tyres, I would have been on the podium without a shadow of a doubt.
“The frustrating bit is I know I’m getting better now. There is a real disconnect between achieving and improving – it’s so tantalising, which gives you a real sense of positivity.”
Despite his disappointing end to the weekend, Grant paid tribute to the hard-working Paul Sheard team for getting him out into the action after his Friday maladies.“It’s a shame to have had the problem, but Paul Sheard and the team worked like beavers again – you’ve got to hand it to him and the guys, he’s a maestro,” added Grant. “Half of the time I’m talking to Paul and I can’t see his face because he’s always working underneath the car, it’s quite a strange relationship we have!”
Grant’s season will conclude with two races at Silverstone in October, the first in the Max5 Championship (October 7) before concluding his Supercup campaign a week later (October 14).
This season George is raising funds and awareness for the Coming Home campaign, which provides housing assistance to ex-service personnel and their families. They build specially adapted homes, which are tailored to the requirements of those in desperate need of housing following a traumatic or life-changing injury. Coming Home is the latest fundraising campaign from Haig Housing, which is a strategic partner of Help for Heroes.
Coming Home:Haig Housing’s latest fundraising campaign, Coming Home, offers a wide range of housing assistance and options for ex-Service personnel and their families. These specially adapted homes have been tailored to suit the needs of those in desperate need of housing following a traumatic or life-changing injury.“Our task is to fix up these brave young men and women so that they are capable of leading the rest of their lives,” explains Help for Heroes founder Bryn Parry, who fully supports the campaign. “That’s where Coming Home can help. They provide them with somewhere appropriate and decent to live.”Coming Home: taking over where Help for Heroes finishesHaig Housing, along with Combat Stress, is a strategic partner of Help for Heroes. As such, the charity dedicated to helping those wounded in British conflicts looks to Haig Housing for support after their work is done. As specialists in their field, Haig Housing is the ideal candidate to provide assistance in housing the serving and ex-Service personnel in specially adapted homes. With many costing somewhere between £150,000 and £300,000, their work relies on donations from the general public.Haig Housing and Coming Home have already provided many badly injured ex-Service men and women with a home for life. Read their stories today and see the contribution your donation could make to others.Please visit www.coming-home.org.uk for more information
