Lydia Walmsley claims three podium finishes on Porsche Sprint Challenge Great Britain debut
- LIAM REDFORD
- 4 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Competing in the CS Pro class, Lydia Walmsley contended for race victories throughout her debut weekend in Porsche Sprint Challenge Great Britain, led a number of laps in race two and finished all three races as the runner-up in class.
Lydia Walmsley stepped up to Porsche Sprint Challenge Great Britain with an excellent debut weekend at Donington Park. Competing in the CS Pro class, Walmsley contended for race victories throughout the weekend as she adapted to a new style of racing. The Graves Motorsport driver led a number of laps in race two, while finishing all three races as the runner-up in the CS Pro class.
After establishing herself as a frontrunner in the Vertu Mini Challenge in recent years, Walmsley embarked on a new challenge in Porsche Sprint Challenge Great Britain. Switching to rear-wheel-drive machinery for the first time in her career was not Lydia’s only challenge as she also teamed up with Graves Motorsport instead of competing for her family-run team. This enabled Walmsley to learn from teammates, while benefiting from data gathered by the team in past seasons and recent testing programs.
Walmsley entered the series in the CS Pro class where she looking to establish herself as a championship challenger from the outset. Remaining on the TOCA package allowed Lydia to benefit from a race weekend format she was familiar with while competing on circuits she had experience of. Each race weekend consists of one qualifying session and three, twenty-minute races, providing close-action throughout the multi-class field.
Walmsley had enjoyed a number of positive test sessions leading into the season opener and she was therefore looking to carry forward this momentum into the two free practice sessions held on Thursday.
In session one, Walmsley set the second fastest time as she completed 21 laps at Donington Park. Improving upon her fastest time by almost one second in session two, Lydia ended the day second fastest and was just hundredths of a second behind CS Pro pacesetter Jonathan Moore.
With the lap times extremely close in testing, Walmsley was targeting good debut qualifying session in Porsche Sprint Challenge Great Britain. The session was disrupted by a red flag at the halfway point of the session, before Walmsley improved her time in the closing stages. At the end of qualifying, Lydia’s fastest time of a 1:10.476 placed her second in the CS Pro class behind Moore.
For the first race of the season, Walmsley lined up from second in the CS Pro class and was targeting a strong Porsche Sprint Challenge Great Britain debut. A standing start in a new series posed a different challenge for Lydia and she fell to third in class at the end of the opening lap. Walmsley was looking to apply pressure to the two class leaders when the race was stopped on lap three following an incident for Aimee Watts.
Following a lengthy stoppage to replace the tyre barrier, the race was resumed over a duration of 15-minutes. Walmsley remained in third position at the end of the first restarted lap, however Moore and Jason Baker were battling closely for the lead. This enabled Lydia to close the gap and by lap four, she ran just a quarter of a second behind Baker after Moore made a pass for the lead.
After starting the restarted race from the pit lane, Karim Sekkat was making progress in his more powerful RS Am machine. On lap five, Sekkat moved ahead and superb work from Lydia saw her follow Sekkat through as he passed Baker. This elevated the Graves Motorsport driver into second within the CS Pro class and Walmsley immediately built a margin to Baker behind.
By lap six, the gap had grown to over one and a half seconds with Lydia continuing to improve her lap times in her first race in the series. As her confidence grew, Walmsley pulled further clear of Baker as she solidified her runner-up position in the CS Pro class. A strong end to the race saw Lydia begin her campaign on the podium as she took the chequered flag in second position within the CS Pro class at Donington Park.
Race two of the weekend took place on Sunday morning with Walmsley starting from second in the CS Pro class. Lydia made an excellent start and immediately claimed the lead from Moore as she led her first laps in Porsche Sprint Challenge Great Britain. The race quickly entered a safety car period after the car of Jacob Tofts was recovered.
When the racing got back underway, Walmsley held the lead by just half a second as Moore looked for his second victory in as many races. On lap seven, Moore ran just over a tenth of a second behind Walmsley and the drivers exited Redgate corner side-by-side. The Toro Verde GT racer was able to complete the move at the Old Hairpin and Lydia settled into second position.
Walmsley continued to run just half a second behind Moore as she looked to remain in contention with the CS Pro class race leader. Her early race pace allowed her to build a comfortable gap to Jason Baker behind and the Graves Motorsport driver held the runner-up position by a margin of three seconds. On lap 15, Walmsley cut the gap to Moore by a quarter of a second however she just ran out of time to mount a late challenge as Lydia secured a second runner-up finish of the weekend.
For the final race at Donington Park, Walmsley again lined up from second on the grid in the CS Pro class. Lydia held her position within class on the first lap, while also doing well to negotiate a number of incidents ahead of her. With the car of Tom Bradshaw requiring recovery, the safety car was deployed to retrieve his car from the Redgate gravel trap.
The race resumed on lap five and Walmsley was quickly required to defend from Jason Baker. The Tuthill UK driver cut the margin to just a quarter of a second and Lydia did a nice job to allow the recovering RS Pro class machine of Jacob Tofts to move ahead without squandering second in class to Baker. Walmsley was displaying great composure under pressure as Baker was unable to draw alongside despite his strong pace in the early stages of the race.
Despite Walmsley and Baker fighting over the runner-up position in class, they both began catching class leader Jonathan Moore. On lap 10, the pair took half a second out of Moore’s lead as the Toro Verde GT driver struggled for consistency. Two laps later, Baker closed to within two tenths of a second of Walmsley as he continued to apply pressure to the Graves Motorsport driver.
In the closing stages of the race, CS Am class leader Hannah Chapman began closing in on Baker and this relieved the pressure on Walmsley. A track limits penalty for Baker, later rescinded post-race, allowed further breathing room for Lydia as she took the chequered flag in second position within the CS Pro class to complete an excellent debut weekend.
Walmsley established herself as an early championship contender in the CS Pro class by finishing all three races in second position. Although Lydia narrowly missed out on a race victory, she gained valuable knowledge in her first weekend in the multi-class championship. Walmsley will now be targeting the top step of the podium when Porsche Sprint Challenge Great Britain resumes at Brands Hatch on the weekend of 10th/11th May.