Disaster at Donington: Heartbreak for All Groom Motorsport at favourite track

With Donington taking place from the 22nd-23rd of August, that leaves just 2 rounds remaining on the Mini Challenge calendar and things are starting to heat up for rookie and Rising Talent Academy brand ambassador Finley Groom. 

Heading into practice on Thursday, the team were feeling pretty good after Finn was able to set the second fastest time in the second practice session of the weekend and being the top rookie for the session too. The track conditions were damp with rain looming around the circuit which is where Finn seemed more confident as the car sat comfortably around the 4.02km track. Finn and the team continued to set positive lap times that would be put to good use for the qualifying on the Saturday, which was set to be a dry session. 

Unfortunately for the team, things took a turn for the worst when one of their engines blew causing the team to cut the session short which ultimately meant that any hopes of qualifying in the top 10 had dimmed. Now the priority had shifted from maximising the best out of the car for qualifying, to replacing the engine with the spare one before race one which would take place only a couple of hours later. Fortunately, thanks to the help of other neighbouring teams in the Mini Challenge paddock, All Groom Motorsport were able to replace the engine and get the car out in time for the first race and inevitably, this would mean that Finn would be starting from the back of the grid for both races. 

The race started and much to Finley's dismay, he was visibly struggling for pace and wasn't able to extract much out of the car which made overtaking in this race extremely difficult. He made his best attempts to stay with the back of the pack as much as he could but ultimately he ended up finishing the race 22/23 and 2 laps down. It would soon be revealed that the reason Finn had struggled with the pace of the car would be down to the fact that the engine they had replaced the old one with, had already over 120,000 miles on it, meaning that it was extremely underpowered. Alongside this issue, the team had also found a spark plug which had been damaged, making it completely unusable. 

Disappointingly, with these issues combined and still two races to go in the season, Finn was unable to compete in the last race and the team now face the challenge of being able to get the car ready for the next race at Croft. Finn and the team were in good spirits the whole weekend despite the plethora of issues that they faced and will no doubt be putting forward everything that they have to ensure that they end their first season in this championship on a good note. Remember that you can tune in to watch these races on ITV4 and ITVX but if you are to miss it live then you head to the official Mini Challenge UK channel on youtube and watch the races there.