Bird flies at Thruxton

Max Bird won a thrilling race at Thruxton in the highly competitive Ginetta GT5 Challenge championship.
By The Newsroom
Published 12th Jun 2018, 09:00 BST
Updated 19th Jun 2018, 16:35 BST
Max Bird at ThruxtonMax Bird at Thruxton
Max Bird at Thruxton

After some solid results in the opening rounds for the 17-year-old student from Chidham, the teams moved to Thruxton with the British Touring Car Championship for round three.

In contrast to the two previous races at Oulton Park and Rockingham, which were cold and wet, the weekend was warm and sunny and a large crowd turned out to watch the touring cars and the supporting races.

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Thruxton is the fastest circuit in the country and can be very unforgiving with a slight mistake resulting in high-speed incident. Bird showed his form from the outset in qualifying with a front-row time only for it to be disallowed for running over a kerb in the chicane and he ended up eighth on the grid of 32 cars for the first race.

An incident shortly after the start resulted in the race being stopped while the circuit was cleared and then restarted, and after a solid race Bird finished 7th. Following some set-up changes to the car overnight he lined up seventh on the grid for the second race in front of a crowd of 50,000.

He made a good start and was immediately challenging for sixth place into the first series of corners and was fifth by the end of the first lap.

He caught the leading group and the next ten laps were a hard-fought battle between the leading four drivers . Bird took the lead on lap 15 winning by just one tenth of a second to take his first win of the season.

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Bird came away from Thruxton up to fifth and within striking distance of the third spot as the series moved to Silverstone for the next round.

Local sponsors Core Results, South Downs Secure and Bluebird Developments were on hand at Thruxton to see the win. Bird has also received support this year from Artec Engineering, Game Set and Match and Sycamore Cars.

He aims to compete in the British GT championship in 2019 and needs to attract further support from partners looking to promote their business and brand.

Anyone interested in supporting Bird in his journey as a professional racing driver can contact him at [email protected] to discuss the opportunity.

You can follow Max’s progress at www.maxbird.co.uk or on Twitter @maxbird35 or on https://www.facebook.com/maxbirdracing