The Drivers Report

Well my TV debut did not go as planned and ended up with me not finishing the race due to a mistake on lap seven.

Anyway the whole week in Ireland was great and racing wise I learnt a lot of lessons.

Testing on Thursday and Saturday went well and by the end of testing I was on the pace. Therefore going into qualifying on Sunday I felt confident.

However, this confidence was miss placed. Halfway through qualifying I came into the pits to make slight adjustments to the car (I had gone quicker than I had done in testing so felt qualifying was going well), but whilst the set up changes were being made my team told me I was 2 seconds off the pace! Everyone was going quicker and I could not work out why. So I went out again but could only find 1 or 2 tenths of a second so ended up qualify 25th out of 31 which was 10th in the scholarship class (12 in the scholarship class in total).

What was the difference? Following qualifying I was debriefed by Martin and the difference emerged. Before our qualifying the touring cars had been out on qualifying rubber for 1 hour which was their testing. They take different racing lines to our rear wheel drive Fords and as a result had laid a lot of hot sticky rubber slightly off our race lines. The drivers that tried these different racing lines found more grip and as a result went a lot quicker. I did not experiment in qualifying, sticking to what I had learnt in testing, this was my biggest mistake.

My team-mate Jay Howard, had qualified first in class and second overall. Jay is also in the scholarship class so was looking good for winning the £10,000 which is awarded to the first scholarship entrant to win a race out right.

Therefore, in Sundays race I was starting toward the back with a lot of work required to make the result half decent. With it being the first race of the season, Martin the team Chief had explained that a lot of people would want to make their presence felt and that a lot of hard battles would take place, and as a result people would make mistakes (this in deed came true, with the race being red flagged after a big accident at the first corner and the pace car coming out twice during the race, in total the race finished 1 hour 30 minutes after the scheduled start!, I was knackered). This therefore, laid my racing strategy out. I decided for the first 6 laps I was not going to get into tough battles for position, but just watch others and wait for mistakes to happen. This paid off, I sat behind the two cars in front on the first lap and let them have an enormous battle for position, shore enough they touched each other, and I went through. I then came across the next battling trio and did the same thing. Overall by the end of the race I had made it to 15th overall and 4th in class. I was a bit disappointed with my lap times, I was still 1/2 second of the pace but pleased that my tactic had worked and that I managed to move up the pack and score a 4th place in my first race. Towards the end of the race, I had to battle with my other team-mate from Mexico Deigo. This battle lasted for the last 4 laps, but I held off his moves and finished the race in 4th.

As for Jay in race one, the first start he had beaten Clucas into the first corner and was leading the race (£10,000 in the pocket). However with the race being red flagged, the restart was not as fortunate for Jay because Clucas knew his tactics. Clucas made it into the first corner in the lead and the two of them pulled away from the chasing pack. Towards the end of the race Jay was pressuring Clucas, but there was no way through. Therefore Jay finished first in the scholarship class but second overall, still a very very good result with him leaving many championship class cars in his wake!

Monday was a different story, the dry weather had disappeared and the rain began to fall heavily during the first TOCA Touring Cars race which took place just before our race. Because I finished race one in 15th, I therefore qualified for race two in 15th. Right in the middle of the pack. The race started well, a few championship cars made their way past me, but in class I was holding my own. The tarmac at Mondello has been laid down for 21 years and therefore grip levels in the wet are minimal. The slippiest circuit I have ever driven. With this in mind, and the fact that I spent all of March Ice driving, you would have thought I would have done well. Well over confidence, a slight lack of concentration and bad luck finished my race on lap seven. The first 4 laps were spent battling and defending, and then the race began on lap 5 and I began pushing to make up places. However, on the seventh lap, I entered a fast double right, I missed my braking point by the tiniest of gaps and entered the corner too quickly and lost control and span into the gravel. I kept the car going and had not lost too many places because I had pulled a good distance between me and chasing Scholarship cars behind. However, bad luck hit when I was pulling back onto the track. As I got my car going again, another car span off at the same corner, and as I was pulling out of the gravel we connected and my left front suspension collapsed and that was a very disappointing end to my race.

This bad luck on lap seven also extended to my team-mate Jay who again was 2 overall and 1st in class when on lap seven he hit a puddle of water and aquaplaned off into the tyre wall.

Oh well maybe the next round at Brands will bring more luck and hopefully I would have caught up pace wise with the rest of the pack. This I am confident will happen, because I tested at Thruxton on Thursday and much to my teams amassment put in the 3rd quickest time of the day in the scholarship class, the fastest in our team!