Having taken victory at the opening TDC round of 2025 at Snetterton last month, Nicole Drought continued this rich vein of form at Silverstone yesterday.
Despite not being able to test ahead of the event, Nicole's EBC Racing Civic topped the timesheets three laps into the Free Practice session on Sunday morning, finishing the session some five tenths clear of her nearest Championship rival. In qualifying, Nicole reduced this time again to take the all important pole position, six tenths clear.
As in Snetterton, Nicole's closest challenger was Matt Swaffer's 3.0 BMW and once again, he used the superior rear wheel drive traction to snatch the lead when the lights went out. As they rounded Copse for the first time, some cars behind made contact and two of the Clio Cup cars were sent off, making heavy contact with the bank. "I saw the incident in my mirrors", said Nicole afterwards, "and knew there was probably going to be a Safety Car intervention so I needed to get back into the lead quickly."
A good run out of Chapel corner onto the famous Hangar Straight meant Nicole got a tow from the BMW. A look to the inside for Stowe was covered by Swaffer, so Nicole took the only other option, around the outside. The Civic drew level with the BMW on the brakes, and both drivers sat it out door to door, with Nicole making it stick on the approach to Vale. Almost immediately, as she had suspected, the Safety Car was deployed.
When the race went green again, Nicole made the perfect restart to open a small gap, which she continued to increase until the pit window opened, when she dived into the pits for the mandatory pitstop. The BMW stopped a few laps later and emerged from he pitlane as Nicole went by, with the pair running side by side on the run to the sweeping Maggotts/Becketts complex. Nicole rebuffed the challenge and maintained the lead but Swaffer was never far away. Each time the lead extended, a bunch of back markers had to be tackled, backing the Honda into the BMW once again.
On the final two laps though, Nicole got the head down and eased away slightly to take the chequered flag and after 40 minutes of hard racing the gap to second was just 2.4 seconds, with Nicole having set the fastest lap of the race on the penultimate lap.
"I really wanted to win on the Silverstone Grand Prix layout. Pretty much the perfect day. Motion Motorsport were, as ever, superb and Justin Roberts was in my corner all weekend, with strategy.
I actually conserved the tyres in the early stages of the race, and that allowed me to get away towards the end. It's a long break now until the next round in Donington Park in July so we may look at some other options, just to keep the hand in. Big thanks to ITM, Gem Oils, Siltex Safety, Joe Mallon Motors, EBC Brakes, RAC Air Conditioning and Mondello Park, who have just come on board. We are hoping to welcome them all to a race meeting after the break!"
