- American open-wheel ace shows strong speed whatever the weather in Belgium
- VRD Racing by Arden driver takes the chequered flag a season-best seventh
- GB3 Championship sophomore keen to maintain current momentum in Hungary
Shawn Rashid underscored the progress he is making in his sophomore season in the GB3 Championship by battling to his finest finish of 2024 to-date in the fiercely-disputed single-seater series at Spa-Francorchamps last weekend (1-2 June).
After missing the first free practice session due to mechanical issues, Rashid thereafter unleashed a strong turn-of-speed in all conditions, as the famously fickle Spa-Francorchamps weather – with the legendary Formula 1 venue nestled deep in Belgium’s Ardennes Forest – proved to be predictably unpredictable.
In the high-calibre, 22-strong field, the rising American open-wheel star qualified 15th, just over a second adrift of the outright benchmark around the undulating 4.35-mile lap and barely 0.1 seconds outside of the top ten in the tightly-fought session. Better still, his commendable consistency secured Rashid a personal high of 12th on the grid for race two, based upon competitors’ second-quickest lap times.
On a wet-but-drying track surface in the curtain-raising contest, the VRD Racing by Arden ace gained three spots before an error on lap three sent him skating through the gravel and plummeting to the tail of the order. Refusing to give up, he recovered one of the places he had lost almost within sight of the chequered flag to grab the final championship point on offer.
In the second of the weekend’s three encounters, Rashid rose rapidly into the top ten and subsequently took advantage of a clash ahead to pick up a further two positions. Setting a succession of very competitive lap times, the Atlanta, GA native ultimately cemented a strong seventh-place finish after getting the better of a race-long scrap with Seb Murray, with the action concluding behind the safety car following a coming-together between two other drivers on the exit of La Source.
Buoyed by the second-best result of his GB3 career, Rashid went into Sunday’s finale targeting a similarly solid points haul. The 28-year-old Purdue University Industrial Engineering graduate appeared to be on-course to accomplish that by climbing from 15th to 12thbefore he unfortunately collided with Josh Irfan at the first corner as the racing resumed following another safety car intervention.
Nevertheless, Rashid left Spa with plenty of reasons for encouragement, and his sights are now firmly set on maintaining his positive momentum next time out at Budapest’s Hungaroring on 22-23 June, which will mark the midway stage of the campaign.
“It was a bit of a rollercoaster weekend, as it often is at Spa!” quipped the Oxford-based racer, who is managed by former British Touring Car Championship Independents’ title-winner, Rory Butcher. “As a driver, it’s always a privilege and super-cool to race around such an incredible circuit with so many amazing corners and changes of elevation – not to mention all the history that accompanies it.
“We didn’t get much dry running during practice and were then straight into qualifying on a dry track. That caught us out a little bit and while I achieved my best grid positions in GB3 so far, I was a little bummed as I felt we had more pace than we showed.
“We didn’t quite get the balance right for the conditions in race one either; the track was drying but remained damp in parts and we compromised on wet tyres with a dry-weather set-up. I was still able to move forward but then I made a mistake with the brake bias, which caused me to lock the rears into the heavy braking zone after Pouhon and that pitched me off into the gravel.
“Following that, I was very happy to make up so much ground in race two. The car felt really strong and after losing a place initially, I pulled off some really good passes and kept my nose clean. It was nice to repay the team with a result that was much more representative of what we know we can do.
“I hold my hands up to what happened in race three. I think I must have misjudged how much heat there was in the tyres at the safety car re-start, and when I hit a damp patch under braking for La Source, I simply locked up. While I obviously did everything I could to try to avoid hitting Josh [Irfan], we unfortunately made contact.
“Despite that disappointment, overall, I feel really good about how the weekend went. I’m not particularly results-oriented at the moment; for me, the primary focus is on following the process and ensuring the trend is going in the right direction. We showed good pace in the wet and the dry at Spa, and the main job now is to iron out the errors and continue working hard to put everything together. Once we do that, I’m confident we’ll be fighting consistently inside the top ten.”
“I’m super-proud of Shawn for what he achieved at Spa,” added Butcher. “In motorsport, sometimes the most important thing for a driver is to be fast. At this stage of his career, I’m less worried about positions and more interested in his speed and potential.
“GB3 is extremely competitive and for Shawn to set the third-quickest lap time in a wet practice session and then race through from 12th to seventh was an incredible feat for someone of such limited experience. He demonstrated true resilience to bounce back from the disappointment of race one and he is showing up at the sharp end more and more regularly. We’re going in the right direction and we will continue to put in the hard work every day. I have no doubt that even bigger results are just around the corner.”