The Drivers Report

Destruction Derby, well that's what this weekend felt like.

Qualifying 

I was quite confident going into qualifying, I had had a good testing day earlier in the week and I was enjoying driving Rockingham. However, again my performance in qualifying was poor and I was very personally disappointed.

In testing we made a decision to  change the brake pad compound due to the nature of the Rockingham circuit with the high number of heavy braking slow corners. Unfortunately, we decided upon a pad that the team did not have in stock and as a result we had to order a new set of pads from Mintex that only arrived on qualifying morning.

This meant I had to spend the first 5 laps of the qualifying session bedding the pads in, this left me about 9 minutes (4 laps) to put in a hot lap. However, I just did not get my act together quick enough and did not piece a good lap together, as a result I qualified 25th, well down on where I knew I should have qualified.

Round 9

I can honestly say that Saturday's race was one of the most manic races I have ever driven.

I got a good start off the line and by the end of lap one had moved up to 21st, overtaking two cars in the first hairpin and another two into the second hairpin.

However, after the very fast S after the main straight heading down to the first hairpin I was on the outside of a four car battle into the tight left hander. As we all braked hard, I was hit from behind and sent spinning toward the concrete wall. I pumped my brakes and managed to slow the car down enough so that the impact with the wall was very gentle. By the time the car had stopped spinning and I had got it pointing in the correct direction, I was last (again)!. What happened next was my only bit of luck of the weekend. When I was half way round lap two, some 7 seconds of the next person in front, Matt Hoskinen and James Harris came together at the last corner and one of them turned over, as a result the race was red flagged and restarted in the order of the last full completed lap.

This meant I restarted the race from 21st and I now had a second chance to build on the work I had done in the first lap. 

On the restart, again I got a good start and maintained my 21st position down the straight and then into the first hairpin gained a place around the outside. Then into the second corner a car span and I had to brake heavily to avoid the car, as a result about 4 cars got past me.

I then pulled away from Adam Jackson. and began to chase Charlie Donnelly. However, Charlie had built up a gap of about 14 seconds whilst I was trying to get past Yap and Jackson and as a result spent the remaining laps chasing down Donnelley.

By the end of the race, I had pulled Charlie back toward me, but he still finished a good 7 seconds ahead of me. One surprising point of the race is that my team mate Jay Howard had had some problems on the last lap and as a result going over the line he was just 0.5 of a second in front of me. If the straight was another 50 yards I would have caught and past him.

At the end of a hectic 12 laps many cars had come together and crashed out (10 in total), and I had moved from 21st to 15th overall, which put me sixth in class.

Round 10

I was starting race two on Sunday in 15th. I knew I could go forward and knew there were a lot of quick guys behind me so was prepared for a hectic race.

The destruction from race one continued and unfortunately in race two I started it.

I got a good start and had passed Donnelly on lap one and was pushing on, however into the S at the beginning of lap two Dan Clarke and Tom Gaymor, both Championship running cars who started behind me, forced their way up the inside of me. I tucked in behind the two of them on the back straight heading towards the first hairpin.

I had had to take a wide line through the S to avoid Clark and Gaymor, and as a result the next scholarship car behind had closed onto the back of me.

I followed Gaymor and Clarke down the straight and then going into the hairpin defended the inside line as the scholarship car behind had got a good toe from the three of us and had closed right up.

Disaster then struck, I made a very bad mistake and missed my braking point, as a result I locked up and lost control into the hairpin, unfortunately collecting both Clarke and Gaymor who had taken the normal racing line into the hairpin.

I was very annoyed with myself and felt very bad for taking Gaymor out of the race, Clarke managed to restart. As a result I had to visit the Clarke of the Course who endorsed my license with 2 penalty points, the first and hopefully last of my career. 

This incident was one of many during the race and in total there was 14 DNF's and a punch up which was broadcast live on TV.

This result was very bad for me, because after round 9 I had moved up to 4th in the championship, and not finishing round 10 dropped me to 8th in the championship, undoing all of my good work from Saturday and the previous 7 races.

So onto Croft, where I am determined not to make such a bad mistake and continue my general improvement in the series.