Bird Thrills at Thruxton

17-year-old Go Motorsport Management driver Max Bird took his first win of the season at Thruxton at the weekend in front of 50,000 spectators and live on TV in the Ginetta GT5 Championship.

After solid results in the first two rounds at Oulton Park and Rockingham Motor Speedway which were both cold and wet Thruxton was extremely hot all weekend.

After his best lap in qualifying which would have put him on the front row was disallowed for a track limit violation Bird had to settle for 8thplace on the grid for race one. With a huge grid of 32 cars the race started but an incident on track bought out the red flags. Once the race restarted Max could only manage a solid 7thpositing finish.

Determined to show his form for race two Max and the team worked hard overnight on car set up and lined up 7thon the grid, again on lap one there was contact between two cars meaning the safety car was deployed briefly. As the race restarted Bird was up to 5thand started to attack the leading bunch who were all fighting for the lead, by the end of lap 6 Bird was now up to 4th, a battle that would continue for the next ten laps keeping the spectators on the edge of their seats as the lead changed lap by lap. On Lap 11 Bird moved into 2ndposition with 2 seconds covering the first 6 cars, with two laps to go Bird made his move and took the lead but still under huge pressure from the #60 car of Nicosia. As they went on to the final lap Bird and Nicosia were nose to tail with Bird managing to withstand the pressure he crossed the line 0.091 ahead of P2 to take his first win and amazingly 2 seconds still covering the top 5 cars in the ultra-competitive field.

Max Bird

“I am really happy to have won here at Thruxton as it is my home race, we have been working really hard off track between the races and its really paying off. The team have done a great job to give me a competitive car and it’s great to repay them for all their hard work with a win. I’m now up to 5thin the points standings which puts me in striking distance for the championship. A big thank you to my sponsors Classic and Supercar Storage, South Downs Secure, Bluebird Developments, Artec Engineering, Game Set & Match, Sycamore Cars, Chichester Gym, Core Results, Aspire Sports and Go Motorsport Management”.

The next race is at Silverstone on 9th& 10thof June