On the 20th and 21st of November, London’s Olympic Stadium was the venue for the 2015 Race of Champions, a driving tournament for the world’s best racing drivers.
Squeezed into the stadium, which is in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic park, was a 10-corner, 565-meter long tarmac race track, on which 20 drivers competed for glory, in the Nations Cup on Friday the 20th, and the Champion’s trophy on Saturday. These included F1 stars David Coulthard, Sebastian Vettel, Jenson Button, Felipe Massa, Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hülkenberg, as well as racers from other sports, such as rally’s Petter Solberg.
They drove different cars in the head to head format, with drivers in the same vehicle of the opposition. They were the Ariel Atom, the Mercedes-AMG GT, the Euro NASCAR, the KTM X-bow, the RX 150 and 200, as well as the event’s own “RoC car”. Each car had different abilities, and the intention is to test each driver out of their comfort zone, so the true “champion of champions” of motorsport could be found. As the commentator said, in motorsport the deciding factor of a race can often be the car, so placing each driver in the same car makes the competition fairer.
The races were held in a head to head, team pursuit format, with the drivers starting at different points on the track, and chasing each other over two laps and two or three heats, with the winner of two heats proceeding through to the next round.
On the Friday, British drivers Andy Priaulx and Jason Plato took the Nation’s cup for England, but it was on Saturday that the main competition took place. In the event, Germany and F1’s Sebastian Vettel overcame Petter Solberg, Nico Hülkenberg and David Coulthard, as well as nine times Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen in the final to take the trophy, having himself lost out on it many times before. As for the British drivers, Joylon Palmer went out in the first round, Jenson Button, Susie Wolff – for whom this was her last professional race - and Bradley Philpot in the last 16, Jason Plato and Andy Priaulx in the quarters and the final brits, David Coulthard and Alex Buncombe lost out in the semis.
About his win, Vettel said: “Of course I’m very happy and honoured to win - but that took a while! A lot of world class racing drivers have won this trophy. I’ve tried to win this many times and failed many times but finally I’ve succeeded.”
Over all, despite an only half-full stadium and some technical difficulties with the cars, it was a great day of racing, and a strong performance for the British drivers. This was further compounded with some excellent stunt driving from Terry Grant – who at one point got out of his still doughnutting car and drove another, and drove a Land Rover around the track on two wheels -, an appearance from a (loud) 2013 Mercedes F1 car, and the FMX4ever motorcycle stint team.
By Thomas Hazell - Hampton School
