TRIO BAG SILVERSTONE TREBLES TO KICKSTART 2025 SEASON

Oli Willmott secured the early advantage in the 2025 MINI CHALLENGE Clubsport with Airtec Motorsport after scoring three wins from three in the opening meeting of the season at Silverstone, with Andy Langley and Daniel Truman also enjoying perfect starts in their respective classes.

Appearing on the short National Layout for the first time since the penultimate meeting of 2023, a field of 14 cars spread across three classes hit the track for the first of five meetings this season, with qualifying providing an indication of what was to come.

Willmott scored the first pole of the season as he led the R56 runners, with his best time being just 0.097s quicker than Freddy Hewitt - the driver who took the title last season.

Hewitt’s fastest time had actually been even closer to the polesitter but was chalked off for exceeding track limits, with the front pair half a second clear of Langley in third.

Langley was comfortably the quickest of the R53 runners as he lay down an early marker to his rivals, with Truman heading the four-strong Cooper field in eleventh overall.

Hewitt made the better start to grab the lead of race one when the lights went out, with Langley trying his best to hold on behind. Hewitt and Willmott went side-by-side for quarter of a lap before Willmott got ahead into the lead going into lap three with the lead trio breaking clear of the pack behind.

Hewitt briefly managed to retake the lead but within a lap, the positions were reversed once again as Willmott grabbed the first win of the the campaign by little over a second, with Langley taking third overall to lead the R53 class.

Elsewhere in the R56 entrants, Steve Webb held off Ian Trundley for third spot, with the final two places on the R53 podium going the way of Paul Sawyer and Freya Belk in seventh and eighth overall.

From pole, Truman was a comfortable winner in the Cooper class ahead of David Taylor and Chris Aram.

Hewitt again made the better start in race two to grab the lead from Willmott, who then lost further ground half-way round the opening lap to allow Langley to move into second overall.

Langley put pressure on Hewitt for the lead early on but it opened him up to attack from Willmott, who claimed second on lap three. Closing in on the leader, Willmott battled his way ahead to make it two wins from two, with Langley once again winning the R53s and taking third on the road - albeit more than ten seconds away from the winner.

Webb would again be best of the rest in fourth spot to round out the R56 podium, with the R53 podium this time around being completed by Ben Trundley and Belk. As in race one, Truman was a dominant winner in the Coopers, beating Taylor to the line by just under ten seconds.

As in the opening two races, the weekend finale would come down to Willmott and Hewitt in the fight for victory, with the defending champion once again making the better start from second on the grid to lead into turn one.

Hewitt would keep his rival at bay for the majority of the race but with less than two minutes of the race remaining, Willmott got a better run onto the Wellington Straight and was able to take the lead at Brooklands.

Hewitt tried to fight back but Willmott held on to make it three wins from three, with Langley completing a hat-trick of his own in the R53 class and once again rounding out the overall podium positions.

Whilst that was a comfortable victory for Langley, it was a different story altogether for the remaining spots on the R53 podium, with Ben Trundley, Belk and Sawyer involved in a heated three-way battle for second spot. Trundley would eventually take the spot after a clash between Sawyer and Belk saw the latter tipped sideways, but she recovered to overhaul Sawyer by the finish and grab third spot.

Truman rounded out the Cooper weekend with his third win, breaking into the top ten overall.