Must Have Media Services were lucky enough to be asked to provide articles for the FPW Racing team throughout the British GP weekend. Luke Hedger was riding for the team as a wild card in the Moto3 class. Starting on the Friday we provided an end of day report for the website covering the two free practice sessions held that day. In addition we managed the FPW Racing team twitter feed and facebook account to ensure followers were promptly made aware of Luke Hedger’s performance.
On the Saturday we covered the third free practice session as well as the qualifying practice, and finally a full detailed account of the race itself on the Sunday. All the reports were promptly displayed on the website with simultaneous content added to Twitter and Facebook ensuring fans and sponsors were well informed of the team and riders success that weekend.
A copy of the race report is provided below as an example:
Hedger had a fantastic race in dreadful conditions to finish the British GP in 18th position.
Having finished the warm up on Sunday morning in an impressive 13th position, and in wet conditions, Luke Hedger and the team were hoping for more rain. His lap time was just 2.637 seconds behind Danny Kent’s fastest time of 2:30.103. Luke went out on to the circuit and sensibly and progressively increased his pace in difficult conditions. Almost every lap he improved on the one before setting his fastest time of 2:32.740 on his eighth and final lap during warm up.
Moto3 British GP Silverstone 2015
The team were in luck. It was pouring with rain during the afternoon and as the race got underway Navarro and Hanika took to the front but by turn three they had crashed out, early victims of the conditions. Luke had started in 36th position and was already up to 29th early on on the first lap. However another rider ran into the side of him and Luke crashed. Clearly he lost a considerable amount of time but got back on and rejoined the race determined to make up as many positions as he could.
Luke Hedger then embarked on a great battle with the ex-Red Bull Rookie, Brad Binder and for a number of laps they interchanged places on numerous occasions. He finally got the better of the South African rider on the fifth lap and was then looking to close in on Remy Gardner, the son of the former 500c World Champion Wayne Gardner. Gardner was 10.5 seconds up the road. Before he could catch Gardner Luke found himself mixing company with Isaac Viñales who had fallen and remounted and quickly overtook the Spanish rider.
With the race entering the half-way stage and after a number of fallers Luke Hedger was now in 26th position. Remy Gardner had caught and overtaken the other Binder brother, Darren Binder, and Hedger was closing fast. Luke was lapping at over two seconds quicker than the South African rider before this battle was interrupted by Romano Fenati who took a tumble from 3rd place, remounted and re-entered the race just behind Hedger.
With just 7 laps remaining Luke Hedger was embroiled in a battle with Darren Binder and Remy Gardner. The three riders were separated by just half a second. Luke made his way past Binder and finished the lap just four tenths behind Gardner. The following lap Hedger moved up to 23rd position as he picked off Gardner. Luke was now 2.87 seconds behind Fenati, but Hedger and Fenati were closing in on Phillip Oettl, four seconds ahead. As the laps counted down Luke caught and overtook the German rider and moved into 21st position. He was now just tenths of a second behind Alessandro Tonucci.
Just four laps of the race remained and Hedger had closed right behind Tonucci. Luke was to suffer another piece of bad luck as the Mahindra rider crashed right in front of him and he couldn’t avoid his stricken bike. Luke went flying for a second time. He wasn’t going to give up and showed his determination as he remounted for the second time in 23rd place. But with the weather conditions continuing to take their toll two more riders fell moving Hedger back to 21st. The incident with Tonucci meant that his battles with other riders were now over. He was some 30 seconds behind the rider in front whilst around 36 seconds ahead of Taz Taylor, the other wildcard entry behind him. The objective now was to get the bike safely home. With both Manzi, Bagnaia and Bastianini all crashing out in the closing laps Hedger brought the FPW Racing Kalex KTM Moto3 bike across the line in a fantastic 18th position.
It’s isn’t often you get an opportunity like this one and Luke didn’t waste it. Luke normally rides a 600cc bike and to switch to a Moto3 bike takes some adjustment. This was picked up on by Neil Hodgson in his BT Sports commentary, where he said Luke’s lap time would drop as he got used to this bike. It did. In FP1 he was 11 seconds off the fastest riders and by the end of the race that gap was down to around 2.6 seconds.
Luke Hedger; “What an amazing experience. I’ve enjoyed all weekend. I felt confident for the race, after warm up this morning, and without the two crashes, which I could do nothing about, who knows where I may have ended the race. I picked up eight or so places at the start before someone knocked me off on the first lap. Then having caught and overtaken several riders I couldn’t avoid the Mahindra lying in the track so fell off again. I can’t be too disappointed though. Before the weekend began I wanted a top 25 finish and I ended the race in 18th. I can’t thank Adrian enough for letting me do it.”
Adrain Mason (Team Owner), “We had a fantastic warm up this morning and got a really good setting with the bike. The weather played in to our hands but starting at the back is always difficult. When Luke was knocked off he got back on and was running 2,3, sometimes 5 seconds faster than other riders ahead of him, which enabled him to catch up. In fact he registered the 11th fastest lap time of the weekend. His lap times in the middle of the race were some of the best. An absolute success, Luke never gave up despite having another fall near the end of the race. It’s been a great experience for everyone involved and we must give a big thank you to all our sponsors who helped us achieve this marvellous result.”