Victory for Milan De Laet and Richard Morris in Barcelona to start 2023!

The 2023 season got underway for Richard Morris Racing on 11th and 12th March at Barcelona with Milan De Laet making his debut alongside Richard in the European Sports Prototype Cup Revolution Trophy, sharing a Revolution 500SC.

It was a fantastic start for the new pairing in qualifying, with both drivers topping the Revolution times during their stints in the car and securing pole in the Revolution Trophy for both of the two races to come later in the day.

Race 1 unfortunately didn’t go to plan with a suspected holed radiator forcing retirement while the pair had been looking in a promising position to challenge for victory. The Revolution team sprang into action immediately, and the team did a magnificent job to have the car ready and reassembled just in time for the second race.

Starting Race 2 from the pitlane (and so behind the entire pack assembled on the grid) meant it would be a mountain to climb for Milan, taking his first race start for the team. Milan, though, made an absolutely sensational start to the race, scything through the backmarkers with a string of efficient overtakes. He then put in a series of extremely impressive lap-times as he reeled in the early Revolution Trophy leader Roger Green (sharing one of the sister 500SC cars with Sir Chris Hoy). Milan was able to pass Green on track and even began to build a useful lead margin before pitting to hand the car over to Richard.

After the pit-stops, Race 1 winner Hoy (who had taken over from Green) was unable to make any inroads on this occasion and Richard gradually extended his lead over the final stages of the race to take a comfortable victory!

Speaking after the weekend, Richard said: “It was a fantastic team effort to get the victory this weekend. Of course Race 1 was unfortunate but that happens in racing and I’m so grateful to Revolution who did a phenomenal job to get the car ready in the short gap before Race 2. Milan made an unbelievable debut – he had scintillating pace in qualifying and his opening stint in Race 2 was key to put me in a strong position to bring home the win despite having started from the back of the grid.

I think it’s clear already that we’re a very effective pairing: I was able to give the benefit of my experience to help set the car up through testing and Milan’s natural speed is undeniable. I’m really looking forward to working with Milan again later in the season! In the meantime, I’m hoping to build on this strong start to the year at my next race event, which is a home round at Silverstone in May.”

Photo: Daniel Bürgin