Trials and Tribulations - The OUM F Takes on the Donington Historic Festival

“To bring it, or not to bring it, that is the question". This was the Shakespearean situation facing the Oxford Universites Motorsport Foundation on Saturday, May 2nd 2026. With the clock ticking on when we had to leave the HQ for the Donington Historic Festival, much deliberation was occurring. The weather forecast of potential rain had thrown a spanner in the works. Do we bring the closed top, race-proven and winner, Sebring Sprite? Or maybe stick to the original plan, bring the open top, development car, which has pretty much entirely new systems, an Elva Courier? While I’m making this out to be a very difficult and strenuous decision, it is not lost on me how lucky we are to be in this situation! We have the opportunity to protect our driver from the elements (which were forecasted to be biblical at the start of the week) with the Sprite or, with the help of all of OUMF’s supporters over the last 2 years, take and study the dynamics of an original Goodwood racer.

There were, as in most decisions, two camps with two very valid arguments. If we bring Sprite, our driver will have a much more pleasant race if it does rain and would still be highly competitive. Those in favour of the Elva brought up all the hard work gone into it over the winter, and that we had raced the car 2 years prior at Donington in its first reconditioned state. In other words, a perfect baseline to see how far the car has come and a measure of our growing engineering abilities. At the start of the week, the weather showed 100% chance of rain on raceday, and the Sprite camp seemed to have the more valid argument. But, in very OUMF fashion, the HQ was quite sunny on the Saturday before the race, a very compelling (and potentially short-sighted) argument for the Elva. With the clock ticking and after a short shakedown test drive, the Elva was loaded onto the trailer with its B-Series powered cousin, the Riley 1.5, joining it on the journey to Castle Donnington.

Decisions… Decisions…

Upon our arrival at the circuit, we were astounded at the number of support trucks and, more importantly, the lack of space! The hunt was on to find somewhere to call home for the next 24 hours, and after getting a Chelsea tractor to stop taking up precious paddock spots, we started to set up our pits. Once unloaded and sufficiently covered from the forecasted overnight rain, the team jetted off to the Nags Head Pub for some delicious grub!

The following morning, much to the team's relief, it was dry! We cracked on with getting the cars ready for scrutineering and sorting our pit area. Quite kindly, the folks at the HRDC hospitality area invited us to grab some tea and coffee from their spiffingly prepared old London bus! We flew through scrutineering, with nothing worth writing about occurring, good stuff. Then we approached the first session of the day, Allstars Qualifying for the Elva. We got the car warmed up and did a full systems check of our Racelogic and Haltech datalogging equipment. All was in order, and FIDO was go for launch. It proved to be an educational session for the chap in the driver's seat and those of us on the pit wall. Ding had to learn pretty much a whole new car: new suspension, engine, cooling, differential, and electronics. In the pit lane, we were seeing if all our engineering effort had worked out. In 2024, the first time the Elva had raced in 14 years, it set a 1:29.8 in the race. As the session went on, Ding was putting in respectable 1:31’s and 1:30 lap times. We understood, new car, track was probably a bit slippery, and he was up against some bloody fast cars. Then out of nowhere, he pulls a 1:28.8 shooting himself to P3 in class and the fastest OUMF has ever gone around Donnington Park! Validation, finally…

Fastest OUMF time around Donington, not bad at all

The Riley 1.5 had its qualifying session just after Elva. With a quick hop and some coffee, Ding was back out in OUMF’s ol’reliable! Amy Foster and her crew had done a brilliant job getting the car ready for the session, and Ding was able to extract a P2 in class to put the Riley in a very competitive spot for the race. With both cars back in the pits, a thorough spanner check of each machine was in tall order. The crew hopped straight to it with both cars on stands in moments, and wheels off soon after. A testament to the team, the Riley seemed to be all in order and ready for the fight again. On the Elva, the brake pedal was found to be quite spongy, and some weeping had come from the newly installed lines. The weeping was fixed, and the system bled to get back a good pedal. The recently installed tyre temp sensors from Racelogic also showed a big temperature delta between the front and rear tyres. This issue matched with driver feedback, saying the rear was a bit more lively than wanted. A pressure change was made, and we looked forward to seeing if it worked in the race.

The Riley went out for its race at 16:25. A monumental battle between two A40’s (one of which was driven by a BTCC driver) and the Riley was brilliant to watch. Coming into the pits, Sean Harvey and Zak Godding completed the stop in good time, and it got back on track, straight into a queue behind the safety car! This caused some places to be lost putting Ding P4. After some more battling and passing, Ding worked his way back to P2 in some scrappy racing! He came back into the pits quite chuffed but much to the Elva team's dismay, the rain had begun.

Ol’ reliable has still got it down the Craners

Begrudgingly, Ding got into the open-top racer, and any science we had planned for the race was now out the window. We just needed the car in one piece, and that would be winning enough. The rain, of course, got heavier as we entered the assembly area with Ding crying out, “Where is the little Sprite when I need it?” I couldn't help but empathise as I stood under my umbrella. Was it bad luck? Maybe. The only thing that was 100% true was that it turned out to be the wrong decision to bring the Elva, but we had to crack on. Ding did his two green flag laps, and at the start, he got by P2 and P1 to take the lead in class. Fighting the car and weather, Ding was going well until a snap at coppice sent him into the gravel. Getting back on track, he was able to fight back to P3, and due to some other misfortune, we were able to hold that podium spot to the checkered flag. Some very well-earned hardware.

The Donnington Historic Festival had all the ups and downs a racer could hope for. The Riley went exceptionally well all weekend and still proves its worthiness to battle some of the best in historic racing. The Elva experiment, on the other hand, did not turn out as we hoped, but shows great promise for when it finally gets a dry race. The weekend was a great start to the season, and of course, we at OUMF could not do any of this without our great supporters. Sustain fuels allow us to run on sustainable race fuels required by most series nowadays! A big thanks from myself personally to Racelogic for allowing OUMF to move into some real race engineering and changing how we tackle problems on track! Julius Thurgood and the HRDC always put on fantastic events, and I can't be more excited to see them at Thruxton in July after the Rally season next month.

See you on the stages,

-Charlie Lemme
Third Year BEng Motorsport Technology