August ‘23 - Festival Italia - Brands Hatch
Grant Williams behind the wheel and pushing on towards a second place finish in Monza class HRDC Classic Alfa Challenge
Following a long summer of motorsport for our usual pedaller of our beautiful 101 Spider Veloce, we thought it’s about time to hand the spot behind the wheel to a proper classic racer. Some say he can only exit the chicane at Goodwood in a sideways fashion and he is ‘crowd pleaser’ hero of the Revival in the famous BUY 1 - Jaguar MK 1 3.4. Ladies and gentlemen , Grant Williams. We’ve been chatting to Grant since early in the year about an opportunity in both our busy racing calendars for the best event for him to have a go in our Alfa and we couldn’t pick a better day for it. Festival Italia at Brands Hatch, the twisty Kent venue is the host of the most proper Italian cars summer celebration.
Before the big race, the Spider was coming after our massive European tour (Goodwood - Monza - Nurburgring - Zandvoort ) and around 4 hours of track time, therefore a well deserved spannering was in order. We prepare our race cars with great pride and attention to details, we are firm believers of the saying “to finish first, first you have to finish”. With 100% reliability over 16 hours of racing across the UK and European circuits, it was all to play for to keep our record intact and so we proceeded.
Having never raced an Alfa Romeo before, Grant was extremely excited to get going in the little but mighty Spider Veloce. The competition in the HRDC Monza class of cars prepared to FIA App K regulations seemed fierced on the day with 6 entries racing from GTs to Giulia Tis
In the holding area we could see the buzz under Grant’s helmet and this is what historic racing is all about, gentlemen start your engines! Grant’s pace improved all through qualifying with much more time in hand, he qualified P5/6 and certainly enjoyed the sideways action through Paddock Hill Bend. In comparison to his usual racer, the Jaguar MK 1 3.4, the 101 Spider Veloce has approximately half the horse power but more important also half the weight, therefore a completely different approach to going fast. Grant’s decades of racing experience came in to play at the start of the race where he absolutely bolted off the line gaining multiple positions in a delightful manner.
Following the eventful tight couple of laps, the pack started to settle and Grant was picking positions one by one, he was already P2 / 6 and really enjoying it out there. It was a beautiful sunny day at Brands Hatch with a good crowd thoroughly pleased with the racing. It the end it all came down to the wire with only a few seconds separating us from a class win while at the same time , Grant defend like a lion to keep the second place.
All in all, a fab weekend! 🇮🇹 Grant Williams and Festival Italia, we salute you! It’s been an absolute pleasure having Grant racing for us and we already promised to give him a drive in an overall race winning GTAm as early as 2024.
If you would like to race your classic Alfa Romeo any of the HRDC rounds, please contact us for assistance and race preparation / support.