Oulton Park

Large crowds were expected at Oulton Park on Easter Monday and the spectators did not let us down, it was by far the largest meeting I’ve raced at in my career and it was good for me to be sporting the new unique livery this year proudly supporting my sponsors Supagard, Geometric Manufacturing, and FadalCNC, and my supported charity The Eve Appeal.

Friday testing was very disappointing even though I was in the top 10 times of the day I didn’t manage to put in a time quicker than a 1.58, I was disappointed as I knew I could go quicker as I had previously in testing, but it was much cooler on Monday morning. This helped the tyres as on the Friday we were having problems with graining as it was so hot and I put in a time two seconds quicker than I had gone on Friday and put in a 1.56 which I was happy with and this put me 8th on the grid out of 23 cars which is my best qualifying position in the VW Cup so far.

I was nervous for the race as I hadn’t yet done a start in the car and so didn’t know how to get it off the line well, I hoped for the best as I dropped the clutch but my attempt had dropped me back a few places as I moved my way into the middle of the pack on the way into the first corner. As I came round and read my pit board I was actually only running in 10th place which, considering my start, wasn’t too bad. In front of me was the yellow Seat Leon that I knew I was quicker than and I was right on his tail until I went a bit too fast into Hislop’s chicane and distorted my left front wheel rim on the inside of the curb. This gave me a slow puncture but immediately I could feel the effect of understeer so I just tried to make sure I finished the race and had a reasonable grid start for the second race. The Seat does not score points in the championship and so with regard to championship points I actually finished in 13th place.

For race two I had taken some advice on how to get the car off the start line from my team manager and this time I was much more successful only loosing one place which I then regained on the run down to the Shell hairpin and by that time I had also passed another car! I was buzzing with the amount of adrenaline and another lap in and I had overtaken another car to gain 10thplace. Infront of me then was my team mate battling with another competitor and I had my sights set on catching them before the race finished as I also wanted to be inside the top 10. On the last but one lap I managed to pass Tim Snaylam for 9th place which I was extremely happy with as not only had I shown that I could be quick but also I could overtake. I pulled into the pits and found I had actually finished in 8th place due to one of the front runners retiring into the pits on the last lap.

After coming home and reading through all the data we then found I was extremely slow in the speed traps so lacking a lot of straight line speed and so now I am looking forward to developing the car before Snetterton to make sure I can be competitive right at the front. Meanwhile, I have posted my on-board race footage onto my Youtube channel (which you can find on the ‘Get Closer...’ page where I have also posted a TV Schedule).