As usual I’ve not been particularly slick in writing this article, so apologies if you’ve been waiting for it (unlikely). It was our 3rd meeting of the year, having missing Anglesey and Donington, and also marked our first foray with the Dallara in the wet, other than the shakedown testing in April when sorting initial problems with the car was more important than speed. It turned out to be reasonably successful, but I had my doubts about that at several points during the day. This was down to a combination of things, but the resolution was to do with considered changes to the car, and to the driver…
Practice
It was damp, but not raining for practice, but wet enough for slicks to be a mistake. As such everyone, bar one or two people lacking the manpower to make the last minute switch, went out on wets. We had to guess the setup of the car as this marked the first time the car would be driven in anger in damp/wet conditions. The usual ‘wet setup’ rules applied – soften everything up (up to a point), increase the downforce, and see how it goes. I’ve spent many, many hours analysing the monoshock suspension as well as the conventional rear anti-roll bar, so our guesses were educated ones, in the hope that we maintained a balanced car that didn’t do anything untoward.
The first few laps were spend exploring the car’s behaviour, relearning the track and trying to remember how to program the dashboard so that it knew where the start-finish point was for lap timing purposes. Learning the track, at least to a reasonable standard, was quite straightforward as there aren’t many corners. Programming the dash was difficult, as I couldn’t remember the combination of buttons to press – I only have two buttons, so God knows how F1 drivers manage with a million!! But the worst part was the car. In slower corners (Luffield, Brooklands and Becketts) I had horrible understeer, and in the fast stuff (Woodcote, which is a corner in the damp, but barely a kink in the dry, and Copse) it was very close to letting go at the rear first. That pointed to mismatched roll stiffnesses for the slow, chassis-dominated sections of the track, and an aerodynamic imbalance in the high speed corner(s). I was also struggling a little with brake balance, as I couldn’t find a setting that allowed me to brake with confidence for much of it – later traced to me turning the knob the wrong way a few times. The result of that on one lap was locking up a bit too much, and having to skim across the gravel on the outside of Brooklands, before rejoining at the exit of Luffield. A nifty trick that owes as much to luck as it does to watching Michael Schumacher do the same trick throughout his career.
Once I resolved the bias problem, I was still left with a car I didn’t like, didn’t feel confident in, and was slow in… At the end of the session I came into the pits, through to scrutineering, and moaned about how awful the car was. Before we’d even cleared scrutineering a number of drastic changes were planned to try and improve it and [hopefully] make it quicker.
Soon, however, I was sat in front of our laptop looking at my datalogging with the session results next to me. I was 3rd, a second behind Neil with Jeremy inbetween. Not so bad. But the datalogging showed, amongst other things that I shan’t bore you with, that I could have gone about two seconds per lap quicker had I done my best sectors all on the same lap. That meant that the car wasn’t so bad, and was more down to the driver lacking ability or technique. Damn!
With that in mind we changed our plans for the setup. The same basic idea was retained and refined, with a little more suppleness in the front monoshock, and a little more rear wing. Other than that, the plan was simply to drive the car a bit quicker and hope that man and machine gelled a bit more…
Race
By the time we got to the race it was raining heavily. Wets were the only option, and a diving mask would have been preferrable. If you want a comparison, find my race report from Cadwell last year, as it was that bad. After two ‘Green Flag Laps’ (during which Kevin Mason overtook me a couple of times, which struck me as odd) we formed up on the grid ready to go. Red lights on… revs up… red lights out and GO GO GO. But I didn’t. Not really. I spun my wheels, fishtailed a bit, but made little forward motion. Kevin Mason, however, make a blinder and shot past me like I was still in neutral. By the time we’d hit 60mph the spray was opaque, and Kevin was long gone. Actually, he was alongside Niel into Copse, but sensibly backed out of it. Next to me was Jeremy Timms and Nick Anstruther, Nick sneaking through into 3rd, whilst I settled in behind Jeremy in 5th.
Jeremy had made some last minute adjustments to his car – notably fitting high downforce front wings, and putting his front wheels on the ‘other’ side, so that the tread direction was backwards. This was, according to Jerremy, ‘a good thing’. When he understeered wide at Becketts I think he realised it wasn’t. I kept it tidy and was up to 4th. Accelerating onto the back straight the car momentarily aquaplaned and wiggled; I caught it, but Kevin had had the same thing ahead of me and was already in the wall backwards, although with the spray I never saw him. I was now back in 3rd, behind Neil and Nick. Braking for Brooklands was fine (if a little cautious), but somewhere near the apex I presume I clipped a puddle, which picked up my rear wheel and spun me around – I couldn’t catch it (regardless of the cause), and narrowly avoiding beaching myself in the gravel, engine still running.
By the time I’d found a gap to jump into, I was down in 13th place, although I didn’t know that at the time. I could have been 7th or 17th for all I knew…
In a way, this turned out to be a good thing in the end. Instead of charging through the field with the red mist snapping at my heels, I just chose to drive around and see how many cars I might overtake without being dangerous. That meant I wasn’t driving like a loon, risking everything for a result and ending up having an accident. To start with I couldn’t see a thing, and waved for two laps to get the race stopped. For a while I debated whether to call it a day and come in, but by the time I had come to a decision the spray (which was the problem) was clearing the water of the track. That, in turn, meant less spray, and we could go motor-racing.
The car itself was running well, was handling well, and more importantly giving me confidence to drive it properly. The quickest lines were around the outside of several corners, although not many people realised this judging by what I saw them doing when I was behind them. I carried on passing cars, keeping an eye out for yellow flags (and red ones), peering into the spray on the lookout for spun cars, but I had no idea where I was, how long was left to go or anything. It turns out that I passed a car per lap on average, with 3 or 4 on the very last lap. The chequered flag came out and the result, whatever it was, was done. I trickled round to the pits annoyed with myself for my silly spin, ready for scrutineering. But I was waved over to Race Control – now, it says in the Final Instructions that only the winner will be stopped for interviews at Race Control, so I was surprised and confused – had I really won??? Soon, however, I was joined by Russ Giles and Neil Harrison, and it was explained to me that Neil had won, I was second and Russ was 3rd. Nick Anstruther had led for quite a while, but spun at Becketts dropping him down the order. Jeremy Timms was 8th overall, but remained 3rd in class. Lenny Coleman – not usually one to trouble the leaders – was 5th, an excellent result for the ever smiling Lenny.
Several people commented on the comeback I made, but I’d much rather have not had to. If I hadn’t spun, then maybe I’d have won by miles… C’est la vie!
As usual, look in the Gallery for pictures of the meeting and onboard footage.
If you wish to know more about the race, or specifics about the car or its performance, then drop me a line via the contact page, and I’ll do my best to answer it. Hell, it might be such a good suggestion that I post it on this website!
Next Round : Croft, September 26th/27th
However, we’re also racing with the BRSCC F3 (formerly ClubF3, formerly ARP F3) at Snetterton on the 30th August as a guest in their championship. This will allow us to run at F3′s intended ride height… More info to follow on that topic!
