28th August 2011 Silverstone Rounds 8/9

After Thursdays decent test day it was time to crack on with the racing! Between Mallory and Silverstone we sent the car on a little summer holiday to Rogue motorsport to have a check over to see if we could find the issue with the power, thankfully Patrick at Rogue produced a nice list of issues that they found with the car which we have now put right and it certainly seems to have made a difference!

The Qualifying Session
I got to the formation area quite late and this put me pretty close to the back for the start of qualifying which wasn’t ideal to start with but with 37 cars on the track i don’t think there was much empty track any ways.
With the track being damp on a couple of corners it was quite hard to guage where i would be when i was on track through the lap times it was quite clearl though that i would be in the top half because some of the drivers I overtook are pretty good drivers, at the end of the session i was infact 10th and my 2nd fastest time also put me 10th for race 2 so this being my best grid position and still with the goal of getting a top 10 finish i was happy with this result.

Final 1 – Grid 10 – Finish 12th
Having looked up at the skys and seeing blue sky aproching we decided it would be safe to go for the low tread tyres, sadly this wasn’t the case as when we sat on the grid it started to rain quite heavy! So we had to do a green flag lap to learn the new conditions, when we pulled up to the grid the rain stopped which made me quite positive!

As the lights went out I had way too many revs for the start and just got wheel spin off the line costing me several positions by the 1st corner how ever i was back in 10th place by the end of lap 2 thanks to a couple of spinners and taking the right line on the opening lap. In the next couple of laps Mike Wells and Ben Rowe Closed in a got past me before the track started to dry. As the track dried I became more and more confident in the grip levels and closed Mike and Ben back in only to loose out again when a back marker got in the way on the penultimate lap during a yellow flag zone, how ever I was pleased to cross the line in 12th place which wasn’t bad for my 1st race on the Silverstone national track but getting the 4th fastest lap time in my class showed it could have gone a lot better if the whole race had been dry.

Final 2 – Grid 10 – Finish DNF
Not taking any chances with the weather this time I decided to go with my best set of tyres and it did rain whilst waiting to go onto the grid sadly not longenough for it to make a difference to the tracks grip levels.

Starting 10th again I got off the line fairly poorly due to being a bit eager with the lights,  this led to me being swamped at the 1st corner and getting hit on the front left and the front right knocking me off the track, I crossed the line in 30th place after the 1st lap not an ideal wy to start the race. For the next 4 laps I was fighting my way back through the pack getting my self back up to 20th place, 10 places in 4 laps I felt quite pleased with.

Sadly on lap 5 exiting Copse the right rear felt soft and there was a lot of vibration to go with it so I felt the only option was to back off and park it in the pits, the issue was later diagnosed as the wheel bearing colapsing.

Another promising race but nothing I could do about it going wrong, even with the traffic and only doing 4 laps I still clocked the 10th fastest time which was only 0.8 seconds off the fastest in class.

Review
A rather up and down day at Silverstone my personal best qualifying position followed by 2 races that would have gone at lot better on a different day, but thats racing for you time to repair the damage and prepare for Pembry on the 25th September, I’de just like to say thank you to Rogue motorsport for the work they did on my car between Mallory and Silverstone as it seems to have done the trick, Ultimate windscreens for sorting me out with a new windscreen, and all my friends and family that attended the event for their support during the event!