Andy Molsom returned to the track following an 18-month injury lay-off as he contested the first round of the Caterham Graduates Racing Club at Silverstone.
A right arm injury, which was unconnected to motorsport, offered Spalding racer Molsom time to reflect and he has changed his support team to 7 Works Automotive, who are a specialist Caterham and Lotus 7 garage in Biggleswade.
Qualifying on the Saturday was all about getting a slipstream, but with 42 cars on track, positioning the car was difficult. However, Molsom placed third in class for both races on the Sunday.
Sunday morning dawned with a blanket of fog, which meant that the 9am race was delayed until visibility improved.
Once the 20-minute race got underway, the mixed class saw the 150 class start first, and after a ten-second delay, the Sigmax race started.
Molsom dropped a place at the start, and throughout swapped places from fourth to seventh in typical close clean Caterham racing.
In the end Molsom finished fifth with the fastest lap of the race – which represented a great start to the year.
The longer 25-minute race at 3pm saw cold, dry conditions and again Molsom had a reasonable start but dropped to fourth by the first corner.
Within a few laps, the top four had gapped the rest of the field and were battling hard for the lead.
The final few laps saw positions switch regularly, with Molsom taking second in his class, finishing 18 seconds ahead of the rest of the Sigmax runners.
Molsom said: “I was race rusty but found myself remembering and learning a lot during the race. To get the fastest lap of the race showed that I still had the pace.
“The second race was brilliant, it was a close clean race. It’s been a long road to get to this, car and health problems over the past four years have made for some difficult times, but to get these results this weekend show that determination and resilience pays off.”
