The Drivers Report

Qualifying 

The heavens opened on Saturday morning and qualifying at 09:00 was a very wet affair and one which I struggled with.

I have not raced on the Silverstone International circuit before, and a problem in testing prior to the meeting meant that I had done very few miles around the track.

My luck on Saturday was not good and a number of elements contributed to me having a poor qualifying session, posting me 25^th out of 28, 5 seconds off the pace.

My problem was that I never managed to get into a groove. On my second timed lap some bodywork came loose on the car so I dived into the pits, where to my surprise the scruitineers did a random ride height test, which I failed. Therefore Bob had to work very hard and quickly to reset the car to the correct height. By the time I left the pits I only had 6 minutes of the session remaining. I did the out lap and then on my next flying lap the session was red flagged due to an accident. When qualifying restarted following the accident I only had time to do three further laps and I just could not work out the best wet lines in that small space of time.

Round 7 Saturday

Luckily the rain had cleared and the Sunshine was out for the start of round 7 so I was looking forward to a good race.

However, the race was possibly the shortest and longest race in Ford History depending on how you look at it. The race on Saturday was Red Flagged after two racing laps, due to an accident involving Ben Clucas. Unfortunately, the impact with the barriers was so hard the barriers had to be repaired and this took us past our allotted time to race (thankfully Ben was only bruised and concussed). Therefore, the race was stopped and would restart on Sunday, with Sundays round being postponed and ran at Donington (this means we have three races at Donington).

Anyway the two laps on Saturday were eventful. I got a good start and immediately put Yap under pressure. Going into the hairpin after the long back straight on the 1^st lap Yap left a space and I dived up the inside. However, Yap closed the door and we connected, I span and Yap continued okay. I got the car going in the correct direction again but I was now last!

I was very relieved that the red flags came out because I would have struggled to catch the pack because Saturdays race was only 10 laps and I would not have had enough time to catch the pack and make a serious impression.

Round 7 Sunday

So the race was restarted on Sunday in the finishing positions from the day before, hence I was at the back of the grid. Again the rain had cleared, which was a relief because it would have been very hard to move up the pack in a wet race.

On the warm up lap I noticed that my luck at Silverstone was not getting any better. When I put my foot on the gas, I was only getting half throttle, the accelerator cable had slipped in the throttle mechanism and as a result the pedal would only go down far enough to get half throttle. This was not good!

Despite this I got off the line quickly when the green lights came on and beat Diego into the first corner. Then the severity of my problem was plain to see, as soon as we got onto the back straight the cars in front just eased away from me.  

By lap two I had kept Diego behind me but fallen back from the next guy by about 2 seconds. This was not good, I knew if I had full throttle I could move up the pack. Therefore, I thought on my feet and remembered that the accelerator cable ran down the side of me to the pedal. I therefore, wedged my foot on the cable and accelerator and this pulled the linkage open and gave me nearly full throttle. Suddenly my times picked up and I started to close on the pack battling ahead of me.

It was a bit awkward having to put pressure on the cable as well as the throttle and made down shifting very hard, however it was drivable and I went on maximum attack.

Even though there was only 9 laps of the race, and I wasted 2 of them trying to work out what to do with the throttle, I still managed to overtake 6 cars and 5 other cars also spun or crashed which meant I eventually worked my way up to 15^th overall from 26^th, this giving me a class position of 7^th. Had there been a few more laps I would have gone even further up the pack, because I was catching everyone in front and was about to pass the next car as the chequered flag came out.

At the end of the day, although I only came 7^th in class, I was still pleased with the race. I had battled well, showed good speed and was very aggressively moving up the pack, something which I have not done in the Fords yet this year. Therefore, my confidence was boosted by a good drive from 26^th to 15^th.