As a result of GUAVA's sponsorship of Team Essex in the Le Mans endurance racing series, a few of us were lucky enough to be invited down to Silverstone last weekend for the final race of the season.
Team Essex are a Danish team, who race with a Porsche RS Spyder and finished second in their class overall, after F1 legend Jos Verstappen and the Van Merksteijn Motorsport team.

Despite disappointing qualifying (which led to much Danish cajoling of the drivers over dinner) the GUAVA/Team Essex car was doing well early on in the race and, when Minassien's Peugeot collided with a back marker and the safety car came out, we were riding high. Caspar Elgaard,the younger of our two drivers, made his way up to 5th place overall before the wheels came off his drive. Literally. Somehow he managed to bring the car back round to the pits, completing two-thirds of a lap on three wheels! The mechanics managed to get it back in the race with John Neilsen now in the drivers seat, but by that time we were 15 laps off the pace and in the high-20s in terms of overall position.

It was a fantastic experience as a motor sport fan to be in the VIP enclosure and the Pit Garage and see how the mechanics, owner and team responded to set-backs and implemented strategy, as well being allowed as close to the action as you can get.

In the end Team Essex clawed their way back up to 12th overall, 4th in the P2 class, only 9 laps behind the class-leading Verstappen. The Guava UK representatives were left to try and drive home at a reasonable speed...