The Drivers Report

Qualifying

I entered this weekend of racing with a big disadvantage. Unfortunately, I had missed all testing at Brand Hatch. The first official test at Brands Hatch in March I missed whilst raising money for charity. I was participating in the Artic Winter Trial Rally (more..). As I missed the official test, the team had organised another test day in April at Brands Hatch. However, at this test day the wiring loom on my car broke and I only managed three laps all day. As a result, I was going into this weekend with no test data and we did not know what car setup would be right for me at Brands.

In qualifying my bad luck continued. The beginning of qualifying went well and I was picking up the pace lap by lap. I put in my fastest lap of the day, a 48.401, this would have placed my 17th overall and forth in class. However, one lap later the red flags were shown and as a result my fastest lap did not count. When a red flag is shown, all recorded times from the previous lap are written off. When the accident was cleared and the green lights came on there was only 7 minutes of qualifying time left and the tyres had cooled down and were past their optimum. Therefore, I went out and was only able to do a 48.727 which put me 23rd overall and 7th in class.

This weekend there were 29 entrants. At Brand Hatch only 28 cars can race, therefore round three was split into two heats, with the top 14 finishers in each heat going through to compete in round 4. As a result, the first person to make a mistake in round three and crash out would miss round 4.
 

I was in the first heat and the race was early on Sunday morning beginning at 09:15. Starting 12th on the grid and 6th in class.

because he is in my team (Antonio's team nickname is Bandit!). They were fighting hard and I just knew it would end in tears for one of them. As a result I sat about 5 car lengths behind them both and watched the battle develop. Sure enough on lap 13 Hideto tried a very brave move around the outside of Paddock, Antonio was very late on the brakes and as a result both went into the corner too quickly. Antonio was on the inside line, so held the corner, however Hideto was forced to the outside and onto the dirty part of the track. As a result, he lost control and span into the gravel at Paddock (I know how that feels!).

This allowed me to close up to Antonio and I spent the last two laps trying to find a way past. I could not find a gap and we went across the line with less than 0.2 of a second between us.

Therefore, I finished 4th in class and 11th overall, a reasonable result. 

I lined up 22nd on the grid with 6 cars behind me and a lot in front. The race began and on the first lap there was a big accident after the first corner.

I was in the middle of the track and had to come to almost a complete stand still to avoid the crash, people behind me were able to take evasive action and go around the accident. Therefore, I emerged the other side in 27th and very annoyed that I had got stuck behind the accident with no where to go. The same thing had also happened to my team-mate Jay who had dropped from 14th to 25th.

Much to the amazement of most, the race was not red flagged and we followed the safety car for the first 6 laps of the race. The race was 25 laps long so there was plenty of time for the race to evolve.

When the race restarted it began well and I moved steadily up the field. However on lap 14 the safety car had to be deployed again. By this time 9 cars had crashed out of the race and you were doing well just to keep it on the track.

I was getting over-steer in all corners and I thought to myself I must have picked up a puncture from the debris spread across the track from all the accidents. I therefore slowed down and drove at about 75% just to check the car out. As a result this allowed cars past and I did not make a massive attempt to defend because I thought I was going to have to nurse the car home. On lap 22, 4 laps after the restart the handling had not got worse which was a surprise, so I began to push on again.

I quickly realised that there was nothing wrong except that I had not kept my tyres warm whilst the safety car was out. I was very annoyed with my self and by this time I was a long way behind most people in 16th place (this sound okay, but was actually second from last). With only 3 laps left of the race, I did not have time to make any impressions and I finished a very disappointing 9th in class and 16th overall.

I will learn from that race and am determined to start putting better performances in.

Good new for the team, is that Antonio had driven around the accident on the first corner and emerged 2nd in class and in the top ten overall. He continued on and managed to take 1st in class and 5th overall. A great result for the "Bandit".

I am learning lessons all of the time and Thruxton is in two weeks, and I am determined to have two good races!