Diagonal Diary: Teammates as dog breeds, a season finale and six still in contention
Monday 23 September:
The week begins on the road as our team travels back from Silverstone Circuit, where we spent the weekend delivering a comprehensive comms and PR package to the British Touring Car Championship.
After three wet and wild races at the home of the British Grand Prix, six drivers (Jake Hill, Tom Ingram, Ash Sutton, Dan Cammish, Josh Cook, and Colin Turkington) are in contention for the championship at Brands Hatch in a week’s time, just as they were before event nine at Silverstone. However, drawn on 365 points each, Hill and Ingram are the ones taking the limelight. They traded wins on Sunday morning before Ingram brilliantly held off a charging Sutton in Race 3 to take his fifth victory of 2024, although contact between the pair on the final lap of the contest kept spectators and viewers on the edges of their seats until the very end. You can read our full race weekend report here.
Also on track at Silverstone was British F4, which raced as a part of the BTCC’s support package. It declared its champion on Sunday morning: 18-year-old Deagen Fairclough, who took a record-breaking 12th win of the year in Race 2 to claim the title. With an advantage over his nearest rival of almost 200 points with three races still to go, it is safe to say that he has utterly dominated this season.
The emerging British superstar has trodden a unique path into single-seater competition, having started his journey in sim racing, in which he first showed the world what he could do. He uses equipment from our client Asetek SimSports whenever he jumps into the virtual world, which you can learn more about here.
Tuesday 24 September:
The latest Motorsport Magazine website column written by our MD, Matt Bishop, is published. Matt delves into the issue of Formula 1’s hostile ‘blame game’ surrounding on-track incidents, highlighted in particular by Sergio Perez’s and Carlos Sainz’s collision in the closing stages of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix just a couple of weeks ago, and how the culture around crashes has evolved as the sport has grown safer. You can read all of his thoughts on that complex situation, and, as a bonus, his stance on the FIA’s controversial new punishments for swearing in interviews, too, below Click Here.
Meanwhile, we are busy curating proposals for two prospective new clients, and we meet with Patrick Heuzenroeder, the 18-year-old Australian driver currently competing in the GB3 Championship. Pat will be out on track in GB3 for the final time in 2024 at Brands Hatch this weekend, so we get to work planning how we can maximise the hype of the season’s championship-deciding round and use it to continue raising the bar of his social media output.
Wednesday 25 September:
As Wednesday begins, Pat takes to the Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit for some pre-weekend testing. Teams are rarely permitted to get extra laps under their belts on Brands Hatch’s Grand Prix layout so the three 40-minute sessions hold extra value, and Pat makes the most of the opportunity. He ends the day second on the timing screens, with 47 laps under his belt, laying some strong foundations for the finale.
Since the weekend is fast-approaching, we publish an interview that we conducted with Pat during his latest ‘media day’ in our City of London offices. A long-form version of our chat that includes Pat debriefing Round 7 at Donington Park and looking ahead to Round 8 at Brands Hatch goes live on YouTube – while on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, a condensed short-form equivalent is uploaded to match each platform’s specific requirements.
To end the day, we publish a humorous new video for our client the BTCC, where a host of drivers tell us what breed of dog they think their team-mate should be. Yes, really. You can find out what they chose for each other, and why, here.
Thursday 26 September:
We kick off proceedings on Thursday by contacting a variety of journalists regarding conducting some rather special interviews during the BTCC season finale at Brands Hatch. With an exciting championship showdown on our hands, we are keen to ensure that what has become one of the BTCC’s closest title fights in years is given the media coverage it deserves. We are also in the midst of organising a fantastic charity initiative involving the series on the same weekend, which we simultaneously pitch to journalists.
Our client Asetek SimSports announces a brand new product: the 3rd Party Wheelbase Adaptor. It means that you can now pair Asetek’s wheel rims with almost any third-party wheelbase, giving sim racers more customisation with their rigs and opening the door for wider use of Asetek’s high-quality wheel rims.
In the meantime, the latest addition to our team, George Brabner, sets off for Brands Hatch, where he will be producing content weekend-long for Pat Heuzenroeder.
Friday 27 September:
We start Friday by polishing and sending a proposal to a potential client, a race team that currently competes in multiple series across the globe.
On the ground at Brands Hatch, the rain is most certainly pouring, but it has not dampened spirits; Pat Heuzenroeder has a strong start to the day, finishing test session two in sixth place.
Rather on-brand given the weather across much of the United Kingdom, we publish a new video on the BTCC’s social media platforms that features some slow-motion shots from last week’s action at Silverstone Circuit. You can get a look at just how wet Race 3 was here.