All in all it turned out to be quite a successful and productive day for us at Snetterton on March 12th 2010. The aim of the day was to shakedown the new fuel injection system and engine, and iron out the faults that were very likely to occur. Of course, it would have been nice to have had no problems, but at least we can sort everything out now and go to Brands confident of good reliability.

The day started with a noise test, which we only just passed – first thing on the to-do list is repack the exhaust again (but with the silencer filling looser or tighter?!).  However, we were at least through, and could get on with the rest of the day…

The first session was just an exploratory one, with an installation lap followed by a quick check-over. The weather was not on our side, and the track was quite damp, meaning the wets had to go on. Fortunately it was the perfect chance to see how the car behaved with low grip, particularly its response to throttle during corner exits, where wheelspin can be so costly to laptime.  All temps and pressures seemed to be doing as they should, and nothing obvious was wrong with the car at the check, so I was sent out to do a few more laps.  However, a couple of laps later the throttle cable snapped – a threaded end fitting that was crimped onto the cable (by a reputable but now out of business cable manufacturer) had caused a stress-raiser, and it had failed at this point. Totally out of our control unlike the Mallory failure last year.