Freddy Hewitt takes the win from Wilmott at Brands Hatch
8th August 2025
Photo credit: Jordan Jackson
Freddy Hewitt achieved two first places on the podium in the third round of the Mini Challenge Clubsport at Brands Hatch, breaking Oli Wilmott’s 100 per cent record.
Events started off promising for Wilmott in qualifying, where he took pole position with a lap that was more than four tenths of a second quicker than Hewitt. However, straight off the grid in race one, both Hewitt and Langley – who came third in qualifying – came out fighting, overtaking Wilmott on the opening lap. He pushed back though, and luckily for Oli, a gearbox failure for Hewitt meant he had to retire from the race, resulting in a comfortable win for Wilmott over eight seconds ahead of Langley.
Despite Wilmott leading on the grid for race two, Hewitt made an incredible comeback with a replacement gearbox, climbing from ninth spot to second by the seventh lap, and eventually to first, claiming his first win of the series. This success continued into race three, where Hewitt retained his pole position with Wilmott in a close second until a mechanical issue meant he was forced to pull off, leaving Hewitt well clear to take the win more than 17 seconds ahead of Langley.
Elsewhere on track, Andy Langley remained unbeaten in the R53 class, but the same couldn’t be said for Cooper points leader Daniel Truman. Like Wilmott, his winning streak also met its end at Brands Hatch after a tale of two battles between him and Papworth, which resulted in technical issues forcing Truman to retire, making way for Papworth to take the victory in the final race.
In the R53 class, the battle between Sawyer and Belk continued. Sawyer took second place over Belk in the first two races of the weekend despite a five second penalty in race two for exceeding track limits. He also fended off Belk in race three, taking second in class while Belk took third place.
But there wasn’t just action on track over the weekend. Brands Hatch was also home to the MSVR Mini Festival, attracting around 10,000 visitors for a celebration of all things Mini, including a display of the classic models. Davanti was represented both on and off the track, hosting a display of Mini tyre fitments across Protoura Race, Protoura Sport and Ecoura HP1 tyres.
Keep up to date with the Mini Challenge Clubsport 2025 season on our social channels, or check out the blog for updates as well as information about our Protoura Race tyre.
