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Sat/Sun 5/6th August - Donington - Britcar V8 Supercars: |
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I'd never raced at Donington before
and so a test session before the V8 Supercars double header at the
weekend was a good idea. My aims for the day was to get used to the circuit as quickly as possible, get down to 1 min 17secs by the end of the first session, then down to 1 min 15 secs in session two and try to get into the 1 min 13 secs area during the afternoon. It was a dull day to start with and threatening rain. Although the circuit looked fairly dry it would be a little green given the amount of rain there'd been over the past couple of days. In fact, the grip levels were not very good at all and it only took 4 laps before the first red flag of the day brought us into the pit lane. By this stage I'd barely learnt the circuit and had a long way to go from the 1 min 4's I'd started off with. Back out for an uninterrupted 12 laps enabled me to get into a bit of a rhythm and achieve my first goal with a best time of 1 min 17.1 secs. At this stage Tim took my Tuscan out to assess its set up and handling and also it would give us a chance to compare some data with each other. After 5 laps and a coming together with a BMW, he'd posted a time of 1 min 13.8 secs. A quick check over the car then an adjustment to stiffen up the back end as he felt the car was wallowing around too much in particular going through the Kraner Curves. Tim did another 7 laps and whilst he didn't improve on his time he felt the car was set up nicely now. It certainly gave me a good target time to aim for. I just had enough time to fit in another dozen laps myself before the lunch break and quite quickly worked my way down to 1 min 16 secs and put in my best time of the session on lap 9 - 1 min 15.6 secs, just what I needed to build on in the afternoon session. By the start of the afternoon session, the sun had come out strongly and it was really quite hot now. In my first session, I struggled to keep my times in the 1 min 16 secs area. This was the case again during the next session. It was made a little harder as there was a lot of traffic out there and the sessions were constantly being stopped with cars going off. However, I was still disappointed by these times and was determined to do better in the final session of the day. At last, I managed a marginal improvement to 1 min 15 .5secs but had at least done a theoretical best time of 1 min 13.5 secs. Speaking to a number of other drivers, it seemed that a lot of them had also experienced similar issues with their times slowing down by up to 2 seconds a lap during the afternoon. It seems that the circuit conditions had changed in the heat and was offering less grip. On balance then, it was a good day. My theoretical best time being very respectable and I had at least improved on my best time in the final session despite the circuit slowing down. This should give me a good start to the race weekend. The week following this test, Tim had the chance to compare our two best lap times. It was very interesting; I was in fact out breaking him into Redgate gaining 0.5 sec, back on the power at the same time and just in front on the way to the Kraner curves. Through the curves I lost 1 second but again made back 0.5 sec on breaking into the Old Hairpin and more time again on breaking into McLeans. I was in fact ahead all the way up to the entry of Coppice Corner but from here I managed to drop back by 2.5secs upto the start/finish line. I lost most of the time on my exit from Coppice, affecting my speed along the straight and then the same again at the chicane again spoiling my terminal speed on the pit straight. Clearly, the next time we're at Donington, I'll need to really focus on the final third of the circuit. Get that right and my times should be very competitive! V8 Supercars - Race Weekend It was another dull start to the day as we prepared to go out for qualifying. It had rained overnight and although it wasn't raining at the moment, the circuit was likely to be a little green again. After just 3 laps, the Safety Car was out as Dean (a fellow Tuscan driver) had come off at Redgate and was buried in the gravel. Once he'd been pulled out, we had enough time for just 8 more laps and I put in a 1min 16.8 sec best time. I wasn't too disappointed with this under the circumstances and was fourth from the back of the grid but I knew I'd have to do better in the race. I really must improve my starts. Although this was a rolling start, I got myself boxed in and with the bunching up going into turn one (Redgate) I hung back a little to give myself room to avoid any cars making a mistake. The only mistake was me doing that! Everyone got around and I now found myself at the back. Annoyed with myself I cracked on and was soon right up the back end of Dean. He was holding me up and I couldn't seem to find a way past. After a couple more laps it seemed that McLean’s offered the best place to try and slip through on the inside, just as I moved up level with his rear wheels Dean pulled across and I was very very close to hitting his back end side on. Unfortunately, in trying to avoid contact I lost the back end of my car, spinning off to the left and only just managed to stop on the grass verge and away from the gravel trap. Hot Tuscan engines don't like re-starting and it took me a lap and a half before I could get the engine going again. This basically finished my race in terms of position and so it was just a case of trying to improve on my times. On the basis that 2 cars failed to finish the race you could argue that I wasn't in fact last but I still wasn't too happy as my times were a second slower than when we tested here. Race 2 would have to be better. Weather wise, it seemed like a complete repeat of the Test day. It was now boiling hot and the race was going to be very hard work. I got off to a better start holding my place into turn one and then set about chasing down Dean who had made a very good start. I made a little dent in the gap between me and Dean but was unable to close in. Half way through the race my engine started to seriously overheat. The alarm came on and the water temperature registered 108. I backed off a little and it seemed to come down a bit. As soon as I pushed on again the temp' rose. I wanted to finish the race and improve my times from race 1, so I continued and tried to ignore the dashboard. I couldn't see any smoke coming from anywhere so I hoped it would last out the race. Luckily it did, and I improved my time to within 0.3 of sec from my best at testing, not great but at least a move in the right direction and with a seriously overheating car. The race took its toll on a number of cars and indeed the drivers who were exhausted by the heat. I was hoping for a better result than I achieved but did at least gain some valuable experience. |
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