Morgan Kidd had her best weekend of the season at Silverstone, finishing all three races inside the top-10 overall, securing three sixth-place results in the Pro class, and consistently battling for top-5 positions in the highly competitive AIRTEC Motorsport Fiesta ST240 Championship.
JRW Motorsport driver Morgan Kidd showed excellent speed in the latest round of the AIRTEC Motorsport Fiesta ST240 Championship as she finished all three races inside the top-10.
Kidd showed superb determination to bounce back from a challenging period of the season to achieve her best results of the campaign at Silverstone.
Finishing all three races within the top-10 of the overall classification, Morgan secured a trio of sixth-place results in the Pro class while consistently fighting for a top-5 position.
The first half of the season has been a period of character building for Kidd who has battled technical issues for the majority of the events to date. However, Morgan was able to match her season’s best Pro class result last time out at Croft and remains in ninth position in the championship standings, without a retirement to her name. Silverstone provided a good chance to turn around her fortunes, with the National Circuit being the site of arguably her strongest performance during the 2023 season on-route to the Club class title.
Qualifying gave Morgan an opportunity to secure her best starting position of the season and her initial laps in the session were extremely strong, placing her inside the top-5 of the Pro class. An issue midway through the session left Kidd in the pits and therefore she completed just 7 laps during the fifteen-minute session. Nonetheless, the JRW Motorsport driver was still able to qualify 13th overall, ninth in the Pro class.
The opening race of the weekend began on Saturday afternoon and Kidd was hoping that the technical issues had been fixed for her to fight through the field. Morgan dropped one position on a busy opening lap as she fell to 14th overall, tenth in the Pro class.
However, her early race pace was strong as she settled into her rhythm and this speed allowed her to overtake the Am class machines of Dan Lewis and James Pope on lap two. After passing Luke Warr for ninth in the Pro class in lap four, Kidd pushed into the gap ahead of her and set a personal best time which was just three tenths of a second away from the overall fastest lap of the race.
In the middle portion of the race, Morgan was closing the gap on the drivers ahead and she entered the overall top-10 by the halfway stage. Pro class rival Joseph Knight entered the pits on lap 12 and this promoted Kidd to ninth overall, seventh in class as she enjoyed one of her most promising races of the season. Now catching Sean Reynolds, the JRW Motorsport driver cut the deficit to just half a second in the closing stages.
On the final lap, championship leader Alistair Kellett retired from the race which allowed Morgan to finish in eighth overall, sixth in the highly competitive Pro class.
With the grid positions for race two based on the results of race one, Morgan would have another chance to secure a good result. It was a challenging start for Kidd after dropping four overall positions on lap one, while slipping to ninth in the Pro class. Joseph Knight then moved ahead on lap two, however Morgan was ready to fight back from tenth in class as she remained in contention with the drivers ahead. After passing Luke Warr for ninth in class, 12th overall, Kidd set the overall fastest first sector of the race to underline her improved performance.
On lap five, she used this pace to good effect by overtaking Am class championship leader James Pope, while quickly closing onto the back of Joseph Knight. Kidd had significant momentum at this stage and drew level with Knight into Copse corner, however she out-braked herself into Becketts while trying to complete the pass which let Pope back through. Regaining her rhythm, Morgan overtook Henry Howarth on lap nine and this put the JRW Motorsport driver back into 11th overall, ninth in the Pro class.
As the second half of the race progressed, Kidd’s pace continued to be strong and after an incident between Isaac Hayden and Simon Horrobin, she was up to seventh in the Pro class. Continuing to run in a train of cars battling for fifth position overall, Morgan was looking to make some late race moves and made a nice pass on James Pope during the final lap to take the checkered flag eighth overall, seventh in the Pro class. Kidd’s finish was improved by one place following a penalty for Sean Reynolds, therefore ensuring she secured a season’s best overall finish.
The grid for the final race of the weekend was set by a partial random draw and this saw Kidd starting from sixth position overall, third in the Pro class. With a number of the pace-setting drivers directly behind, it was a challenging opening portion of the race with Morgan falling to tenth overall, seventh in class at the end of lap one. The following lap saw Am class competitor Henry Howarth also move ahead, however with a twenty-minute race there would still be opportunities to move forward.
Kidd was able to overtake Howarth on lap three, before moving into sixth in the Pro class with a move on experienced racer Simon Horrobin. The middle portion of the contest saw Morgan enjoying a close battle with Horrobin, with the pair not losing a significant amount of time despite trading positions on multiple occasions.
The duo were also catching Am class driver James Pope and on lap ten, Morgan pulled off a stunning move to take over eighth place overall. Drawing alongside Pope down the Wellington Straight, Kidd overtook her rival around the outside of Brooklands and completed the move at Luffield.
After clearing Pope, Kidd ran her personal best lap of the race and on lap 12, she was the second fastest driver on track behind race leader Gary Miller. This speed allowed her to catch the Am class lead battle with Archie Johnson applying pressure to Dan Lewis. Morgan ran directly behind this pair in the closing stages and although was unable to make a move, she ended the weekend with a sixth-place finish in the Pro class, taking the checkered flag in eighth position overall.
Morgan enjoyed her best weekend of the season at Silverstone as she finished all three races inside the overall top-10. Displaying excellent race pace which challenged those at the very front of the field, Kidd was able to make progress from a tough qualifying session to battle for top-5 positions within the highly competitive Pro class.
Morgan will be looking forward to building upon this performance as the AIRTEC Motorsport Fiesta ST240 Championship heads to Thruxton on the weekend on September 21st/22nd.
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