TVR Tuscan Championship  Silverstone 
8th October

Gareth Evans owns the yellow Caterham K-Series raced by Matthew in 1997 and ’98. In 2000 he also raced in selected rounds of the TVR Tuscan championship – the fastest one-make series in the UK.

Due to illness, pressure of work and the recent birth of his son Thomas,
Gareth was unable to drive in the final round on the Silverstone Grand Prix
circuit and kindly offered Matthew the chance to take over the car.

After a short testing session the day before the race meeting Matthew felt confident of starting within the top dozen of these 430 bhp cars, “but I just didn’t get it together in the wet qualifying session. I knew that I could brake much later and go through the turns faster but was too keen not to make a mistake.” 31^st was the disappointing result.

Attempting to avoid excess wheelspin at the start Matthew ran too little revs and stalled. 42^nd – dead last – as he crossed the start line.

“I got it together from lap two and had a lot of fun catching and passing cars.” Matthew finished the race in 14^th place, having set the 10^th fastest lap.

“The key, for me, was that I quite quickly got on the pace of driving a very powerful car and one that is not too dissimilar in terms of power and handling to the GT cars I want to race at Daytona and Le Mans.”