Nick Gilkes‘ results have improved in the last few rounds of the GB3 Championship; Hillspeed‘s sole entry has been closing the gap to the front throughout the season.

The Championship is at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps this weekend; The Checkered Flag spoke to one of GB3’s two Canadian drivers in the paddock after he took P13 in Race 1.

“Reasonably happy. I think I made a few mistakes which cost me a bit, I lost quite a few positions at the start.”

The first race of the weekend was very much a sprint, as the safety car neutralised the field for the first two laps after an incident which caused James Hedley and Nico Christodoulou to retire, damaged Alex Connor and Callum Voisin‘s cars, and later saw Hedley’s JHR Developments team-mate Matthew Rees disqualified for his hand in the buildup.

Gilkes was just behind the chaos as it unfolded, and gave his view from the cockpit.

“It looked like they were coming back on the track when they’d obviously lost their wheels, so I backed off and lost a few more spots because I obviously didn’t want to collect anyone.

“So I dropped back quite a bit, then overtook someone, really just kept my nose clean and picked up places that way. But overall I’m fairly happy with the result and looking forward to the next one.”

Despite the spinning cars around him, he got through the incident without contact as the 22-car grid exited La Source.

“It was perfectly fine, I backed off probably a bit too much in all honesty! I haven’t looked too much at the incident, but all good.”

He will have been grateful to have kept hold of his front wing going into Eau Rouge and Raidillon, the two most famous corners on the circuit and among the most iconic in motorsport.

We asked him again about his view through a section which is crucial for getting or breaking a tow onto the Kemmel Straight.

“It’s not too bad, the Halo especially is perfectly fine. Obviously it’s quite a steep hill so you can’t see on the other side of it.

“It’s an amazing corner and not being able to see what’s on the other side is probably what makes it so great; the elevation change is definitely part of it.

“[Spa]’s so cool, the amount of history here and just the nature of the circuit is incredible. Everything around it, being in Belgium for the first time, even, it’s just amazing to be here.”

Race 2 gets underway at 7:55pm local time, with Gilkes in the midfield again.

“I don’t know [what to expect]. We start P13 because of the second-best lap yesterday, it was a bit better compared to others, so I’ll hopefully move up a little bit.

“I’ve got to improve my starts a bit, we’ve been struggling in that respect but it’s Spa, you never know what can happen, so no predictions but a top ten would be nice.”

He agreed that starting further down the order for the reverse-grid Race 3 is a positive sign of his progress throughout the year.

“Yeah, exactly. I think at the start of the year we were starting fourth and third for the reverse-grid races.

“Obviously at Donington Park I didn’t make it because of the suspension failure [in Qualifying], but I would say it’s a good thing to be moving away from the front of the reverse-grid races.

“We’ll see, from seventh around Spa, who knows what can happen, we’re at Spa, so I’m looking forward to it for sure.”

Gilkes joined Max Esterson in making the big step up from Formula Ford into slicks-and-wings racing for this year, but “did virtually no pre-season testing.

“I think I did six days before Oulton Park, which compared to what a lot of other people do is basically nothing.

“Coming from Ontario and Canadian FF1600 has been a big step but we’ve seen the improvements.

“The gap has slowly come down, at Oulton we were 1.7s off and at Snetterton we were 0.7s off.

“Obviously this weekend it’s quite a bit of a longer lap, so the gap came back up to 1.3s but Luke [Browning] has been clear of anyone.

“I think it was eight tenths to [Joel Granfors] in second, so we’ve been cutting down that gap and it’s been a good ride so far.”

Spa demands a very specific set-up approach for the teams and drivers, with the high-speed Sectors 1 and 3 sandwiching the more technical Sector 2 which takes in Les Combes, Malmedy, Pouhon and the Fagnes chicane to name a few.

“I would say the set-up around here is a lot lower downforce than you’d see anywhere else, just because the straights are so long.

“At Silverstone you’ve got to think about Maggotts and Becketts, it’s high-speed but you need the downforce. The third and fourth bit [Chapel] aren’t flat.

“Silverstone has a lot of medium and high-speed corners where you require the downforce, so the wing tends to be a bit higher up over there, whereas here you can see it’s basically flat.

“The set-ups vary a bit but the team do a really good job. I’m not sure on everything [we can change] obviously, I’m just the driver, I leave that bit to the engineers because they know what they’re doing.”