Caldwell battles at Brands Ginetta Junior Finale

JHR Developments driver Olli Caldwell takes another Rookie Podium at the Brands Hatch GP season finale

Ginetta Junior Championship
October 3, 2016

Yesterday saw Brands Hatch hosting the conclusion of the Ginetta Junior Championship and Olli Caldwell took to the GP circuit for onlythe second time in what was a fantastic season finale.

Things got off to a fantastic start with Olli 4th in Practice 1 and he followed that up with a 13th on Friday afternoon and 10th on Saturday morning.

Qualifying was in some ways quite unfortunate, Olli had placed himself perfectly for his first flyer and went purple in sector 1 before the red flags came out meaning all cars had to return straight to the pits. After the red flag Olli never quite got the perfect track position, but still managed an 11th place. A position he was more than capable of doing well from one!

The first attempt to get race one going on Saturday afternoon was quickly stopped after a very scary incident which saw three drivers pulling out the weekend immediately.

He was challenging Charlie Fagg for 4th and would have been on for a Rookie win, but coming into the last corner last lap, he was forced wide onto the gravel which saw him tumble to 8th in the blink of an eye. How he kept going and kept the loss of places to three was a mystery, but it was a disappointing end to what was nearly a fantastic result. He did still finish on the Rookie podium though!

The race on result meant Olli would line up for 8th for race two, which was going out LIVE on ITV4. HE made another fantastic start being brave round the outside of Paddock Hill at the start to run 7th. However, at turn two a lap later he was forced wide with a train of cars now queued up on the inside. It dropped Olli to 10th as the safety car came out.


On the restart one moment in the race lost him the tow to the lead pack and was never quite able to recover as he was now having to punch his own hold in the air.

In the end he finished 11th place just missing out on the Rookie podium.

Overall Olli showed huge promise at Brands, he showed good pace and even better race craft and was unlucky to fall on the wrong side of incidents, but that’s racing as they say.

That’s the end of the season in terms of Ginetta’s for Olli as he’ll now return to karts this weekend for the Rotax Max International Open in Adria, Italy.

Next Event

Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya

11 - 144th April 2024