Championship

I thought I should dedicate a page on the website to briefly explain the largest single make championship in the UK – Ma5da Racing. Firstly the Ma5da Racing name is not a spelling mistake! It’s a combination of two terms – Mazda and MX5. The championship, which is broadcast globally via Motors TV has three seperate classes which are all on track at different times. The Mk1 class is the one I compete in and is, as the name suggests, for all of the Mk1 Mazda MX5. Similarly there is a class for the newer, more expensive Mk3 Mazda MX5 which has proved to be gaining in size but hasn’t yet reached the popularity of the Mk1. New for 2012 is the introduction of a kit car built using the running gear from a Mk1 Mazda MX5, seen to be an alternative to the Mk1 class but not a substitute.

Rhys in a Mk1 following a Mk3 at Knockhill

The Mk1 grid is enormous with 70-80 cars present on an average weekend. This means that there has to be a group system, which is where things can get confusing. The format of the race weekend is that the first time the car goes out on track is for qualifying. There is no practice in the race schedule although often there are test days on the days leading up to the weekend. Qualifying is done in two groups because there are allowed to more cars on track in qualifying than in a race. The next part is where things get tricky!

In order to keep things fair in case of heavy rain in one session the qualifying position decides the order for the races and not the qualifying lap time. Competitors are allocated to one of five groups A-E. The letter of the group means nothing, and being in Group E is not a grid full of slow people.

Pole in Group 1 Qualifying >>> Pole in Group A
Pole in Group 2 Qualifying >>> Pole in Group B
Second in Group 1 Qualifying >>> Pole in Group C
Second in Group 2 Qualifying >>> Pole in Group D
Third in Group 1 Qualifying >>> Pole in Group E
Third in Group 2 Qualifying >>> Second in Group A

As you can see, the starting position for the race is higher up than where you qualify unless you have qualified first in your group. This makes writing race reports tricky as it’s hard to choose whether to list the qualifying position or starting position. I feel that the starting position is a better representation of the race as a whole.

The groups will all race so that every competitor will compete in two races. It does mean that you can go a whole weekend without racing somebody. I think it’s a fair system given the number of cars but it is hard to follow far anybody just watching the TV footage, because there will be about six different winners, which can again make reporting on the weekend tricky. The only exception to the group system is the Autumn Championship which due to the larger grid capacity of the Silverstone GP circuit had 54 cars on track at the same time. I hope this helps to explain how it all works!