Richard Hawken proud of the Paras team after BTCC debut

Richard Hawken described his first experience of the BTCC as “immense” as he made his on-track debut in the opening practice session at Donington Park.

The Infiniti Support Our Paras driver missed out at Brands Hatch owing to an issue with the second of the team’s brand new Infiniti Q50 machines, but the car was sorted for Donington Park and Hawken was able to have his first taste of BTCC action.

“I’m immensely proud,” Hawken told TouringCarTimes. “I had a massive headrush when I rocked up this morning at 7am and they [the Paras] were under the car, checking things and getting tyres sorted. I think how far we’ve come from when Derek [Palmer] Sr, Colin Smith, of the then Afghanistan Trust, and I sat down over a cup of coffee in White City and conceptualised this whole thing to what we see now, two cars, paras running around, lovely trucks, lovely weather.

“It felt great when I left the pits. We’ve arrived, the car’s here, the team’s here and there’s Paras everywhere, does it get any better?”

Hawken ended the session 27th on the time sheets, although he admits he wasn’t particularly looking at the times as it was his first time he’d ever driven the car.

“I was super slow,” continued Hawken. “I think someone had great pleasure in telling me I was about 15 seconds off, but I’ve never sat in the car, today was the first time out, it’s the expectation of the unknown, really. The power steering was giving me a few of those moments where I couldn’t trust or commit to the car through a corner because I didn’t know if it was going to dump power steering on me all of a sudden. You can run with power steering off or on, but if you have this kind of intermittent power steering where every now and again, it’ll give you a load of power steering. It’s pretty scary.

“I think we were doing 1:25s now which is quite pedestrian, but the goal is to leave tomorrow with a healthy car and three solid finishes under my belt.”