Rockingham race 2 and 3
Race 2 we had a slightly better qualifying position and I was able to get the perfect start and perfect first few laps to rocket up about 5 positions and knock on the door of the top 10. I was able to hold position and challenge the guys in front until about lap 4 or 5 when I started struggling badly to get into 3rd and 4th gear. The majority of the lap is spent in these 2 gears so it had a big effect on my pace. I was able to find a way of getting the car into gear but was regularly missing gears which lost me a lot of time and I dropped to about 24 and dead last and lost touch with the cars in front. Luckily the safety car was then deployed which allowed me to catch the pack back up, and having got the hang of the gear issue I was able to find 3rd and 4th, and although I was losing time on the gear changes, was able to pass a few cars before the finish. I felt confident the car was on the pace and I could hopefully race to a top 10 in race 3 although we would start down the grid due to the problems in the previous race.
The 3rd race I got another good start and made up places on the first lap. Unfortunately I got stuck behind a driver that was blocking at every corner and could not find a way through. The pace in the car was impressive, and if I could have cleared the slower car early on it would have been a very good finish to the weekend, but we finished all three races, and despite the small problem in race 2, the car ran faultlessly so full marks to the team.
We know the car will be more competitive and after shaking the cobwebs at Rockingham, we will be challenging for top 10 finishes in every race.
Rockingham race weekend
It is very exciting to be back in a properly prepared racing car for the first time in nearly 18 months. We had a stressful week leading up to the weekend wondering whether the car would be ready in time and we would have enough money to do it, but in the end everything came together and we were ready for the Friday test day. The boys at Inter Motorsport did a great job putting everything together and put in some very long days, so all credit to them.
The idea of the weekend was to shake the car down and use as a test weekend, as we hadn’t had any time to do a test or shakedown so didn’t really know what to expect, but the cars reliability has been faultless, just showing what a top class team they are.
The first test went well, shook the car down and did the whole session with no problems, and the same with the second session. Lap times weren’t blistering because we had very old tires on but we were confident that we could put in some quick times in qualifying.
Qualifying didn’t go exactly to plan, I got held up for the first 4 laps by a slow competitor and the best of the tires were gone. In the end we put some good laps in and posted a fast lap on lap 10. The car was good and there was potential for a much better qualifying so the grip position didn’t highlight the positives but we had confidence going into race 1.
After a shocking start that dropped me to last I got my head down, caught up with the pack, made some good overtaking moves on cars in front and got up to 17th position at the finish but again there was potential for a much better result. Lap times were competitive leaving us confident going into race 2.
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