[woodcote]

Ash remained in yellow lane for the B Final. Keith had chosen blue lane, Matthew - the sole Super-G runner - had chosen white and Andy was in red...

   

Keith was blisteringly quick off the line. Andy tried to keep in touch, but binned it at the hairpin second time round. Ash was comfortable with his pace and stuck to it - about half a second a lap slower than Keith. However, the leader couldn't relax - Matthew had taken a couple of laps to warm up and was soon setting super-quick times and eating away at the lead.

   

On lap 8, Matthew took the lead and began inching away from Keith. However, any hopes of an A Final were short lived... Crashes on consecutive laps saw Matthew drop from first to last. Keith was back in control of the race, a lap ahead of Andy and the gap lengthening every time round. There was late drama. Keith came off with 15 seconds to go, thankfully collecting Andy in the mayhem - otherwise the two lap gap might have evaporated. Andy gained a bit of ground, but Keith was the winner by a lap and a half. Matthew had a late wobble, but came back to pip Ash on the line.

Keith slotted into white lane for the A Final...

   

Pole-sitter Oliver had chosen red lane for his Super-G, with Deborah's Mega-G+ next to him in blue. Pete had bravely gone for yellow with his rapid Super-G. He'd need to get the hairpin right at least 25 times. Keith was quickest off the line and first through the hairpin. Pete left his braking a fraction too late - and he was off. The other two followed safely, but trailed Keith by a couple of tenths.

   

Keith maintained his lead until a brief off on lap 4 dropped him to second, behind Deborah - Oliver also crashed that lap. Two more offs in quick succession - those Super-Gs can't be pushed on dirty tyres - dropped Oliver to the back. Pete was now battling with Keith for second. After his disastrous first lap, he'd slowly wound up the pace and was now banging in a string of sub-4-second laps.

   

Moving past Keith, Pete had his sights on the lead. Deborah was lapping consistent 4.1s compared to Pete's 3.9s. Sadly, a 3.761 on lap 16 was followed by a crash on lap 17 - losing Pete 5 seconds. Again, he ramped up the pace, but Deborah drove a faultless race - finishing on 28.55 laps, three quarters of a lap ahead of Pete in second. Keith came in third, a lap ahead of Oliver, who finished the race with his car on the floor...

   

Huge congratulations to Deborah for winning her first race of 2025. Pete had the consolation of winning the F1 Classic Cup for pre-2000 chassis. Bravo to Ethan for a superb junior medal win - his first HO junior medal. Stephen finished top rookie...

   

Here are the results from all the finals...

   

The F1 championship is as per the results table. However, that gives us a very tight first round of three races in the Club and Rookie Championships...

   

Three different winners, ten different A Finalists and the top eight are within a win of each other.

   

I expect to see a few more rookies join us during the year, but James, Stephen and Phil have a nice head start.

Apart from a video, that's a wrap on an excellent evening to start the F1 season. Thanks to everyone who came along, especially to the set-up and race control crews and to all those who stayed behind to pack away at the end of the night. The next HO action is the return of WHO Mod and WHO Tuners on Wednesday 2 April, but we do have our opening WHO Digital GT Championship team race in two weeks time, on Wednesday 19 March.