And it was time to race this Sunday on Spa-Francorchamps when the flag was waved – 20 laps on the beautiful belgian track with a variety of cars!

Before we go into the negative, let’s review the goals, Muffler Shop Racing set for themself leading up to this race. Trompke indeed finished the race and he didn’t finish last! The most important point of this race although was to minimize damages to the car, and we unfortunately saw a small crash, that almost ended the race for the C6 Laboratoire on the halfway point. Due to a small loss in focus, Trompke went into the 2nd left hander before Blanchimont with too much speed, hitting the last pole with the side of his car, spinning the car out into the grass section. The repair was relatively quick and because the crash happened right before the end of the track – dragging the car over the whole track wasn’t necessary. It did come with a time loss nonetheless and a few small incidents took some time aswell – for example the problem 3 laps in, when he started spinning at T1 and got stuck on the hill:

The start didn’t go as planned either – Trompkes car unfortunately stalled, leaving him in last place with a distance at start. He was indeed the only Voisin C6 Laboratoire on the track, due to the other listed not getting in his car before the starting flag was waved – he had to wait in the pits until the race was over.

But even with those problems along the way, Trompke did not suffer any mechanical issue with the car whatsoever – While he suffered from pressure drops in his tyres in practice, he could counter that issue for the race by lowering the pressures of the car overall, as he said: “We rather run a bit underpressured then too much. We don’t want to risk a blowout, that costs us minutes to change.”

So was Spa any good?

Trompke himself is still fairly happy with the results: “Overall, I think we couldn’t have made a much better result, even if the mistakes didn’t happen. We are still in an underpowered car and the straightline speed of those other cars were way to high to stay with them. We learned a lot as a team, but me especially learned that i have to learn more. Patience and focus are the main ingredient to a 2 hour race like this and we will take a lot of things that happen today into the next practice sessions at Miramas to iron it out. We might also benefit from a second seat, that might be filled fairly soon.”

That second seat is rumoured to fit a dutch driver, fairly young but very willing to learn the ropes of the game. Trompke himself is eager to meet him off and on track: “A new driver in the team is always a new perspective on things. Team dynamics can vary so much, but I’m open to discuss every little thing with the team and enjoy discussions about setups and driving styles a lot. There won’t be any fighting about positions between us two, at least from my side – if he is faster, he should get the chance to fight the big guys. We might even give him a good car to compete in and if he doesn’t do damage to it, he might be the main ingredient for points this season.”

Where do we go from here?

The 13th place is still something to cheer about, but on Miramas, Trompke wants more: “If we can get the C6 into the top 10, even by sheer luck and other cars breaking down, that would be good for morale and secure us a good spot in the season. We are not aiming for the win, but we are confident, that this season will see us high up at some point.”