Richard Morris Claims Another Victory on Revolution Race Return
After a summer break from racing duties with the Revolution Race Cars works team during which Richard made his debut at the world famous Goodwood Festival of Speed, launching the new Genesis Electrified GV70 by taking it on the prestigious hill climb, tested the Revolution 500SC at the legendary Spa Francorchamps circuit, and travelled to America to drive demo laps at Lime Rock Park, Connecticut, as part of a Racing Pride activation with its North American ambassadors and partners, Richard returned to the track in anger at Donington Park circuit on 22nd to 25th September as part of a 16-car prototype grid.
Richard’s Revolution had been through an extensive rebuild over the late summer and had quite a number of replacement parts installed ahead of this event, and so the team elected to do two days of testing with Richard in the car to make sure that it was fully run in and to experiment with some different set-ups in the process.
By the end of testing Richard was very happy with the balance of the car, finding excellent stability under braking and traction on corner exits especially (extremely impressive given the more than 500bhp produced by the car’s 3.7 litre supercharged Ford V6), and he carried that momentum through into qualifying securing a class 2nd place start for Race 1 and class pole position for Race 2 of the double-header event.
In the first of the two races, Richard was running in a comfortable 2nd position behind Revolution’s James Abbott and ahead of the other sister Revolution of Sir Chris Hoy. Unfortunately, though, with just a few laps of the race remaining Richard was forced to retire the car due to a pipe connected to the gearbox coming detached meaning that he was stuck in just one gear unable to shift and losing far too much time around the tight circuit to keep fighting in a sprint race format. This rare and easily fixed issue was, however, swiftly resolved by the team ahead of Race 2.
The start of Race 2 was chaotic with Richard having to avoid two fast starting cars crashing with each other in turn 1, allowing Hoy to leapfrog several cars into the lead of the race. After the opening three laps Richard was glued to the gearbox of Hoy’s Revolution for the class lead; with Richard catching through the famous downhill Craner Curves and the high-commitment Old Hairpin and Hoy doing a fantastic job through the second half of the lap, where most of the overtaking opportunities at the circuit are, to keep Richard at bay. This enthralling battle continued deep into the race, until Hoy’s challenge succumbed at the Melbourne Loop hairpin with around 5 minutes to go. Richard went on to take the race victory, a second win to add to his feature race victory at Zandvoort earlier in the season, and his 5th podium in 6 races for Revolution in 2022.
Alongside the action on track, Richard was joined at the event by representatives from sponsors GLJtech and by members of the Racing Pride community including the winners of social media competitions for tickets to the event kindly offered by organisers BRSCC (which is partnered with Racing Pride). This continued the theme of Richard using his 2022 race events as opportunities to bring people, and particularly the LGBTQ+ community, together at the track. Indeed, Richard has welcomed over 60 guests through similar initiatives across the course of the season.
Richard Morris:
“This summer I was fortunate to have some unique and incredible experiences in motorsport between my previous race for Revolution at Silverstone in June (itself a fantastic occasion at which we celebrated Pride with dozens of supporters) and this event at Donington Park. However, it is fantastic to get back to racing action. I’m particularly pleased with the qualifying performance, claiming a pole position, which certainly came from the hard work over the two days of testing and the balance I was able to find with the car. Claiming another victory after some hard-fought racing on track was the perfect end to the weekend – after all, winning is what it’s all about! I also loved hosting my guests on race day, both from my sponsors and, of course, from Racing Pride. Being able to share my passion for motorsport with so many people and give them opportunities to see the cars up close and to have unique experiences is something which really motivates and inspires me.”
