Caitlin May ends consistent Silverstone weekend with podium finish

Caitlin May secured a podium finish and three top-5 results in the Am class at Silverstone, keeping her in contention for the AIRTEC Motorsport Fiesta ST240 class championship title.

Photo credits: James Roberts

Caitlin May continued her strong season in the AIRTEC Motorsport Fiesta ST240 Championship by stepping onto the Am class podium at Silverstone. Displaying excellent racecraft throughout the weekend, May finished all three races inside the top-5 within class, while challenging a number of the Pro class competitors.

Improving by one position in every race, Caitlin finished race one in fifth, before taking the checkered flag fourth in race two. Closing out the event with a third-place result, May remains in contention for the Am class title as the second half of the season continues.

Following another consistent weekend of racing at Croft, Caitlin held third position in the Am class of the AIRTEC Motorsport Fiesta ST240 Championship prior to the Silverstone triple-header.

The Am class has been closely contested throughout the season to date with over half of the full-season competitors having stood on the class podium. May was aiming to bridge the gap to championship leader James Pope as the racers took to the Silverstone National circuit, the track at which she scored her largest haul of championship points at last season.

Qualifying took place on Saturday morning and was an extremely closely-contested session, with the slipstream effect proving vital down the straights. May did a good job of improving her lap times during the session, with her fastest time of a 1:06.630 just three-quarters of a second away from the overall top-5. This lap placed Caitlin 16th overall, sixth in the Am class and kept her in contention for a podium finish within class.

May started the opening race of the weekend from 16th overall, sixth in the Am class and made a clean start, dropping a single position on lap one. After running side-by-side with Charlie Ellis at the end of lap two, Caitlin cleared her rival on lap three and began catching the group of drivers ahead. May was now applying pressure to her Am class rival Christopher Blackburn and by lap ten, she was running just a quarter of a second behind the fifth-place driver.

As a result of her battle with Blackburn, Caitlin then came under pressure from Harry Hayes with Hayes moving ahead on lap 11. Hayes then attempted a manoeuvre on Blackburn and contact was made between the pair which saw them both beached in the gravel trap.

This put Caitlin into the top-5 of the Am class and with a sizeable gap ahead, she set a series of consistent lap times to cut the deficit. In the closing stages of the race, a number of Pro class drivers retired which saw May take the checkered flag in 13th position overall, fifth in the Am class.

For race two of the weekend, the grid was set by the finishing positions from race one and therefore Caitlin started 13th overall, fifth in class. After holding her top-5 spot confidently on the opening lap, she slipped to 16th overall, sixth in the Am class at the end of lap two. However, she quickly lined up moves on the drivers ahead and by lap seven, May had passed Charlie Ellis for a top-5 position within class.

Now in a small amount of clear air, Caitlin ran consecutive personal best times as she closed in on the drivers ahead. Overtaking Henry Howarth on lap ten, May’s pace remained consistent and she gained two further overall positions on lap 12 as Isaac Hayden and Simon Horrobin made contact at Brooklands.

Caitlin continued to close in on the Pro class machine of Luke Warr in the closing stages and on lap 16, she set one of the fastest final sectors of the entire race. Running a personal best time on the final lap of the race, May took the checkered flag in 12th position overall, fourth in the Am class.

Grid positions for the third and final race of the event were set by the race two results and therefore May was targeting an Am class podium. At the end of the first lap, Caitlin dropped two overall positions from her grid spot as she fell to 14th overall, sixth in the Am class. Her pace was nonetheless encouraging in the initial stages and this allowed her to move ahead of the Pro class machine of Luke Warr on lap two, before overtaking Henry Howarth for a top-5 position in the Am class. May continued to move forward on lap four as she passed Charlie Ellis and was now just one spot away from an Am class podium position.

After clearing Ellis, there was now a sizeable gap ahead and therefore Caitlin got into a rhythm and slowly caught the next group of drivers. May was doing an excellent job in the middle portion of the race to gain a few tenths of a second every lap, with Am class rival James Pope receiving a track limits penalty directly ahead.

Therefore, continuing to close in on Pope would be vital to stepping onto the podium to end the weekend. With four minutes remaining, May cut the deficit to just one and a half seconds and she was even able to mount a late on-track challenge. Taking the checkered flag in 11th position overall, fourth in the Am class, May was classified in third place within class after Pope’s penalty was applied which secured her an overall top-10 result in the process.

It was another consistent weekend of racing for Caitlin who kept herself in contention for the Am class championship. Three top-5 finishes, including a podium in race two, enabled May to come away from Silverstone with a large haul of championship points.

She was able to make good progress in all three races and will be looking ahead to her first visit to Thruxton which will be the next venue for the AIRTEC Motorsport Fiesta ST240 Championship drivers on the weekend of September 21st/22nd.