HILL ON A CREST AT THRUXTON
Shaun Hollamby was standing alongside Autosport at the platform on the inside of the Thruxton chicane, looking the swish man about town in dapper black coat.
Free practice had started, and Jake Hill’s Ford Focus was straight into the 1m21s in the wet – that’s an insane time, but the Goodyear rain tyres are grippy and so is the Thruxton surface. “I can remember when I was doing those times in the dry in my Golf,” he mused.
Hang on, shouldn’t he be in the pitlane? Didn’t he buy Motorbase with Sam Osborne’s dad Pete? Well, yes, but things changed, and Hollamby, his old Essexbased AMD staff now ensconced across the Medway at Motorbase’s Kent premises, left the partnership. But he still keeps an involvement with Hill’s career, and he has another string to his bow: presenting the new Pitch BTCC TV show, to be shown on the Sportystuff channel.
Oh yeah, and Motorbase founder David Bartrum was in the pitlane. Wait a minute, wasn’t he supposed to be retiring from the BTCC after selling up? “Part of the deal was I was going to come to races anyway, standing around,” said Bartrum. “But now Shaun and Pete have parted ways, and it’s a big train set to play with, and bigger than it ever was [with four cars]. So Pete asked me if I would join him as joint team principal, just to get him up to speed. That means I’m still standing around, but now I’m doing it with a title and a bit of input!”
It turned into a fantastic weekend for the team, with Hill’s three podiums propelling him into the championship lead. After the first, the amiable Osborne Sr hoisted his pocket-sized charger clean off the ground as he hugged him; after the third, where Hill worked miracles on slicks in the wet, the team was just incredulous. He so nearly beat Jason Plato to second, but the Vauxhall veteran had the grip to out-accelerate the Ford to the finish line.
When Ash Sutton passed Hill for the lead, he audaciously tried to fight back at Church Corner and the chicane, but the grip just wasn’t there.
“I’m absolutely screwed!” beamed the exhausted Hill. “I’m proud of myself, I’m proud of the team. I don’t think there’s many people who could have driven that quickly in wet conditions on the slicks. The race win was definitely there – it’s a shame the rain came back at the end. I loved my battle with Ash, and it was unfortunate that Jason was there at the end.”
Just to add to the bonhomie, Osborne Jr won Jack Sears Trophy honours on the weekend thanks to a ‘class’ win in the finale, after Dan Rowbottom, winner of the first two races, lost a gamble to fit slicks mid-race. The Osbornes are a family who love their racing, and the joy was palpable. So are the Hills, and it seems that, in
Jake’s case, he’s at the crossover between valiant underdog to becoming fully fledged top-liner. Much to the pleasure, too, of that new Pitch BTCC presenter.