Race Report Donington
The weekend got off to a difficult start with the failure of an earth switch leading to the car cutting out on a regular basis round the opening laps. This meant we were starting on the back row of the grid for Race one.
Race one started well with 9 places gained on the first lap and an enjoyable fight through the field throughout the whole race. The set up changes we had made to the car after what we had learnt at Oulton Park defiantly improved the car but made it very hard to drive until the tyres had got up to temperature. Finishing 4th in class and 7th overall meant Jamie picking-up the ‘Driver the Day’ award making-up for the disappointing qualifying.
With the grid for Race 2 being based on the fastest laps from race 1 meant a 5th grid slot for Race 2. After another strong start Jamie was stuck in a battle for 3rd overall battling with the Robin Dawe’s classic formula Vauxhall Lotus and Morgan McCourts Leastone. This looked like it could have gone on until the end of the race, but with a few laps to go more frustration we were out of race – gear change issues stuck in 1st.
After a scramble in the pits to try and find the fault of the jammed gear we were out for Race 3. For the last race of the season we were starting 4th overall, again based off the fastest lap from race 2. While we were pretty confident we had found the cause of the gear issue, we suffered again a jammed gear after 1 lap. However this time we were stuck in 5th gear which meant the car was still drivable.
After a couple of laps working out how to drive around this problem and moving out the way of people in championship battles, Jamie managed to drag the car back up the field. After great battles with a number of drivers, some luck with cars in front braking and dispite being woefully slow out of the hairpins on the Donington GP circuit, we finished 5th overall and 3rd in class. The highlight of the race was certainly the last few laps with Jamie catching and subsequently passing Phil Davis’s Van Deimen on the entrance to the GP loop only to lose it on the line due to the lack of acceleration in 5th out the final corner (as well as some great driving by Phil).
Another weekend done, another season finished, yet more lessons learnt.
After the race weekend we have discovered that the gear fault has been caused by micro-switches failing in the paddle shifter- a change a shifter for next season for next season?
It was a positive for the team that despite setbacks we were able to still end up with some good results and be closer to the sharp end of the grid.
It was also really pleasing to go back to the track where we had the best results in the 2021 seasons and compare performance and lap times. Hoping for 2 seconds a lap improvement we were spot on-more if only the shift system had not played up??