Overtaking 50 cars at Silverstone earns Driver of the Weekend award at 2022 Classic

One drive from the back of the grid to the podium would count as a good race weekend in any driver’s book. But two on the same day?

This year’s Classic at Silverstone witnessed just that, as Tim de Silva pulled triumph from disaster as he stormed through the field from lowly starting positions.

His efforts in overtaking 50 drivers in two races earned the 26-year-old PhD student the Motor Sport driver of the weekend award.

“It was just a blast to show up and drive the cars,” he said, “But I do appreciate getting a little bit of recognition — it’s exciting to be chosen.”

De Silva has raced in enough historic events — with his father, Harindra, who works in the investment industry — to know that misfortune comes with the territory.

The pair arrived at Silverstone from America with five cars to compete in six categories, in the hope of enjoying at least some untroubled races.

But even the seasoned racers were left a little dismayed by their luck in two of the first races on Saturday, which determined the grid positions for Sunday’s rounds.

After qualifying second for the first Masters Endurance race, they retired their ex-Le Mans Pescarolo LMP1 car from the lead with a technical issue after 13 laps. Tim didn’t even start in historic F2 when a throttle cable broke on his way to the grid for the first race.

De Silva had hoped to be in contention for victories in both classes, but Sunday brought the view of dozens of exhaust pipes, as he started close to the back of both grids.

Starting the Historic F2 race in his Chevron B35, De Silva had resigned himself to a top-ten finish, but this would all depend on how quickly he could get up to the front of the closely-matched field.

He used his experience of racing with mixed grids in Formula 4 (“it gave me a lot of practice in handling traffic”), and fought his way to finish third from 28th on the grid in a mere ten laps.

Even better was to come in the Masters Endurance event, where there was no doubting that his LMP1 car had the pace to win in a field that included a large number of lesser-category cars, including several GTs.

The question was whether De Silva could navigate the sizeable car to the head of the field through traffic. “It was my first outing in the car,” he said. “It is big — I didn’t even know where it ended”.

He didn’t just survive the bustle of the first lap — by the end of it, he was in 11th, having started 26th. Two laps later, he was now ninth and up with the LMP3 cars. Then, finally, good fortune favoured De Silva as a safety car was called to recover a stricken Pescarolo.

As well as removing one of the contenders for victory, it also closed the field up, with De Silva sitting second, behind the Lola B12 of Michael Lyons, with a single racing lap remaining.

It was an epic, as Lyons defended frantically from the Pescarolo for a full lap. Then, at the final corner, a late lunge saw De Silva nose in front and take the chequered flag — 25 places ahead of where he started.

“If I had run the race from the front, then I would have expected to win,” said De Silva. “The pace was where I expected it to be. What was sensational is that I had to start from the back”.

Although a penalty saw De Silva drop to second in the final classification due to exceeding track limits (there’s no escaping them even in historic racing), it didn’t take away the exhilaration of recovering 50 places in two races.

“The fun was showing up and driving the cars,” he said. “And all of the things that broke on Saturday made for a more interesting Sunday.”