{"id":1778,"date":"2012-10-06T22:08:21","date_gmt":"2012-10-06T22:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teamusa.is.mcmurry.com\/?p=1778"},"modified":"2012-10-20T11:03:04","modified_gmt":"2012-10-20T11:03:04","slug":"brabham-finishes-sixth-for-team-usa-in-european-debut-at-silverstone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/?p=1778","title":{"rendered":"Brabham Finishes Sixth for Team USA in European Debut at Silverstone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Silverstone, England \u2013 Matthew Brabham made a fine debut in the Formula Renault BARC Championship today at Silverstone, finishing sixth among an extremely competitive 32-car field at the wheel of his Team USA Scholarship\/Cliff Dempsey Racing entry. The result ensured an impressive start to his tenure as the latest Team USA Scholarship winner, following in the footsteps of accomplished veterans such as Jimmy Vasser, Bryan Herta, Buddy Rice, AJ Allmendinger and Andy Lally, and rising stars JR Hildebrand, Conor Daly and Josef Newgarden<\/p>\n

Brabham benefited from the brief experience he gained during test sessions on Wednesday and Friday \u2013 and the data from English CDR teammate Chris Middlehurst \u2013 to qualify fifth for today\u2019s race. His best time of 56.875s was just over 0.3s adrift of polesitter Seb Morris in a field where the top 22 cars were separated by less than a second. Brabham was a scant .030s adrift of championship leader Scott Malvern and a similar margin in front of Middlehurst. After a short break, the cars returned to the track to set the grid order for Race Two on Sunday. This time Brabham had to settle for 14th.<\/p>\n

\u201cQualifying went well,\u201d said Brabham. \u201cIt was a little different to what I\u2019m used to with the split sessions although it was quite fun to change it up a bit. It was a little wet but there was a clear dry line and I managed to qualify fifth for the first race which was excellent. It was so close, as it\u2019s been all week, and I was only half a tenth off second place! In the second session everyone got a bit quicker but I stayed the same so I fell down the order. It was a little disappointing for me, but it\u2019s all so close that only a few tenths separates us all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The usual first-lap shuffle in today\u2019s 18-lap race resulted in Brabham losing a place to Middlehurst. The Florida-born and based Brabham then settled into a race-long battle with Russian Ivan Taranov and Briton Kieran Vernon. Their infighting allowed Middlehurst to make a slight break, but there was no respite for Brabham. Vernon found a way past his Russian rival on Lap 9, but Brabham withstood the pressure to secure a sixth-place result.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a lot of fun as the racing was quite tough,\u201d he said. \u201cI was a little nervous as it\u2019s been a long time since I\u2019ve done a standing start, but I got away well. Into the second corner I got a little nudge from behind and went wide. I didn\u2019t lose any positions but I lost a bit of time to the people in front, so the rest of the race I was defending quite hard. The last few laps I managed to get a slight gap and hold my position. I\u2019m very happy to finish sixth. These guys have been racing all year and I still have a lot to learn about these cars and the way these guys race over here.<\/p>\n

\u201cTomorrow I start 14th so it\u2019s going to be a tough race but I\u2019m looking forward to it. I\u2019m learning a huge amount and really enjoying the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

The full results from today\u2019s race are available at http:\/\/bit.ly\/SCF9l4.<\/p>\n

Race Two tomorrow will start at 3:10 UK time. Live timing is available via TSL-Timing.com at http:\/\/bit.ly\/VCT6yu.<\/p>\n

The Team USA Scholarship is supported by Doug Mockett & Company, Road Racing Drivers Club and its ground-breaking SAFEisFAST.com video tutorial initiative, Cooper Tire & Rubber Company, INDYCAR\u2019s Mazda Road to Indy, Mazda, Honda Performance Development, NameSilo, Silicon Salvage, McMurry Inc., Parathyroid.com, Dyson Racing, Allen Berg Racing Schools, Seat Time, LLC, PitFit Training, Sparco USA, RACER Magazine, eFormulaCarNews.com, Speedstar Management, Styled Aesthetic and Manifest Group as well as numerous past Scholarship winners.<\/p>\n

Attached on-track photo courtesy of Jakob Ebrey Photography; posed photo by Paul Davies Photography<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Silverstone, England \u2013 Matthew Brabham made a fine debut in the Formula Renault BARC Championship today at Silverstone, finishing sixth among an extremely competitive 32-car field at the wheel of his Team USA Scholarship\/Cliff Dempsey…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1784,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1778"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1778"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1888,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1778\/revisions\/1888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}