THREE FROM THREE FOR MBR SO FAR IN 2019

THREE races into 2019 and MBR has already laid down a strong marker for the year ahead – with a trio of titles already secured from the team’s first three races.

The season began on the first weekend of January with the first round of the TVKC Winter Series at PFI, a meeting which saw the brief return to MBR colours of former driver Ben Barnicoat, now competing in GT racing with McLaren.

And Barnicoat duly delivered on a cold but dry weekend at PFI with a brilliant lights to flag Senior X30 victory from pole position in the final race of the meeting, having won the previous two heats earlier on the Sunday.

Further success for the team followed a week later, eight time zones away in Singapore, as Alex Huang secured a dominant victory in the IAME Asia Cup, again in Senior X30 – his final race abroad before returning to the UK to race again for MBR this year. In tough conditions, the young Singaporean roared away from a top-quality field to win by seven seconds and begin 2019 in the best possible fashion.

And the hat-trick was completed on Sunday as Rufus Hunt produced another dominant MBR drive to win by four seconds at Shenington – securing his maiden Senior X30 win and MBR’s third in three in the process.

All three victories capped off a strong January for the team, as its other drivers all made progress in their classes at the PFI and Shenington meetings to offer hope for further success for MBR as 2019 develops.

In Senior X30, Sunday at PFI began with an MBR one-two – Barnicoat leading home Sean Butcher in the first heat of the day, with new team member Cameron Coombes further down the order. Cole Kilner then secured a brilliant second in Heat 2, with Matthew Hudson notching a strong sixth as he continues to adapt well to Senior racing, having qualified an impressive third overall the previous evening. Barnicoat then went on to lead the field home in the final heat, with Butcher fourth, Kilner ninth, Hudson in 13th and Coombes just outside the top 20.

Behind Barnicoat in the final, Hudson led home the rest of the MBR team in seventh, with Butcher ninth and Kilner 14th to make it a positive beginning to the New Year.

In Junior X30, Oliver Duffell produced a strong qualifying performance in ninth in only his third outing in his new class but couldn’t build on a promising tenth in the second heat of the day, earning a bumper penalty in heat 3 which pushed him down the order for the final, finishing 19th.

After a quick-fire 14,000 round trip to Singapore for the Asia Cup, MBR’s Dan Barrett returned to manage three drivers at the Shenington Club meeting on a bitterly cold weekend. Alongside Hunt’s Senior X30 win in the final, the teenage racer also notched a first place heat one, while fellow Senior driver Cameron Coombes bagged a sixth and a seventh in the heats before finishing sixth again in the final on his first ever trip to the Oxfordshire track. In Junior X30, Oliver Duffell secured a sixth and a fourth in his two heats, again on his first visit to Shenington, before coming home with a creditable sixth in a keenly-fought final.

MBR’s drivers will look to continue the excellent start to the year when the team is next out at the TVKC club meeting at PFI in Lincolnshire at the beginning of February. Look out for further updates then.

Ben Barnicoat image courtesy of Chris Walker at Kartpix