HARRI’S YEAR ENDS ON A HIGH
AS the Michelin-backed Ginetta Junior sportscar racing championship drew to a close for 2021, West Walian driver Harri Reynolds’s first season with the Assetto Motorsport Racing Team proved a success.
The teenager built on his years of winning as a kart racer and became a seasoned driver on the best racing circuits in the country as he took part in the Ginetta championship that supported the British Touring Car Championship.
The year saw Reynolds getting stronger at every round he raced in during a very competitive season with a grid of more than 30 of the potent Ginetta sportscars, the biggest ever seen in the junior category since its inception.
As the season moved into its last quarter, the Narberth youngster took in his first championship race at the Silverstone circuit, home to the British F1 Grand Prix, and took a creditable sixth place in the qualifying battle, held in early morning foggy conditions.
Reynolds’s highest finish of the weekend was eighth in the first of the three races, scoring two ‘rookie’ podiums, though contrastingly he had the disappointment of his first nonfinish of the year in race three due to a broken driveshaft.
For the series’ penultimate round, drivers and teams moved to Leicestershire and the demanding undulating Donington Park circuit in early October, where again three races faced the Michelin Ginetta Junior contenders.
Reynolds was again on the pace, his Assetto Motorsport car qualifying fifth, his best of the year, and finished the first race just one place lower and third ‘rookie’, getting a podium spot again.
The second race was interrupted, with the red flag coming out middistance after an incident, leaving just a six-lap sprint to the chequered flag once the safety car pitted, and Reynolds took a determined sixth placing.
Race three was amazing for the Welsh driver.
After a poor start from eighth, he was initially dropping back but got himself into a determined mode, passing cars ahead and then fighting his way further forward to finish a morale-boosting third overall, only for the stewards to hand him a time penalty for an alleged short cut at the high-speed chicane during the last lap.
That penalty dropped him back to fourth.
The final race weekend of the championship year still lay ahead, however, as the Ginetta series headed back to Brands Hatch.
Again the Reynolds Fencing car took eighth place in qualifying, and a ninth position in the first race, though the racing rather collapsed thereafter.
Reynolds and many others were unable to race at normal speeds after it became a tough weekend with cars in gravel traps, no overtaking, and red flag stoppages from other accidents meaning there were only a few laps in each race, so no chance to race properly, and the last two races finished behind the safety car.
Nonetheless, it was a successful year for Reynolds, who finished the championship 11th overall and fourth rookie.
After the championship finished there was a two-day ‘winter series’ held at Brands Hatch.
Running well on the first day, Reynolds took a second grid place in the qualifying session and held his position until the chequered flag, losing out a little in race two after he was hit from behind and pushed wide into the Druids bend and dropping a couple of places, though he held on to fifth place.
Day two wasn’t quite as successful. Accidents by others meant qualifying was shortened and Reynolds only got one lap, putting him an unrealistic 10th on the grid.
But the Welsh driver still took decent results with two sixth places, which brought him fifth overall in the winter series.
Thoughts for the Reynolds Fencing family team now turn to the championship prospects for 2022 and a new attack on the Michelin Ginetta Juniors series.
Meanwhile, the Five Nations Rallycross Championship has announced fixtures for 2022 that include two double-header race weekends at the BARC Pembrey Circuit.
The first will be over the weekend of May 14-15, and the second over the two days of the August Bank Holiday.