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Success at Snetterton 9th June 2008 Having had our first win at Rockingham just a few weeks before, we were quite upbeat about the Snetterton weekend. Essentially we had everything to lose as we were the new championship leader, by just a 3 point margin.  With this in mind we hit the track on Friday, in familiar wet and cold conditions. Having fine tuned our wet setup at Rockingham, myself and Jon quickly realised we had a good car beneath us at Snetterton and worked on familiarising ourselves with the circuit again, and fine tuning an already good feeling car. We were keeping our eye on a new car in the championship, the Ford GT. It was ridiculously fast, as it had not yet been properly equalised for the championship. There was a 70kg weight penalty waiting for them in the wings, but unfortunately this was not able to be enforced until after the weekend. Also, the car was being driven by last years British GT Champions, both ‘A’ classed drivers. This meant that they would have to pit for an additional 30 seconds. Although this is a long penalty, the speed of the car was such that they were still able to challenge for wins across an hours race. We limited testing on Friday to avoid any unnecessary wear and tear as we topped the timesheets early on, clearly showing we meant business. Jon also had a run in with a slower GT4 Ginetta damaging one of the cars wheels, so we sidelined the car to check all was as it should be. Saturday morning saw more rain, it seemed as though it was never going to stop! We had another hour test session in the morning, followed by mine and Jon’s qualifying sessions. These were wet, but greasy, a very tricky surface to drive on. We were quite confident going into qualifying, due to our testing pace in the wet, but unfortunately we were in for a nasty surprise. It was my job to qualify first, with a brand new set of wet tyres. I realised very early that we had a problem, this being that we simply had no grip! The car was moving around all over the track, and was a nightmare to try and drive at pace. Unfortunately, I was only able to qualify 9th in the session, which I was very disappointed with. Next was Jon’s turn to qualify, but there was no time to make any setup adjustments to the car. We thought that the problem could be a bad set of tyres, but this was not the case. Jon completed his qualifying and finished in 14th place. He also struggled to find any grip on the greasy track. When we studied the qualifying results, we could see we were not the only Dodge Viper to have struggled, every single one had qualified poorly when compared to their earlier testing pace. It seemed that the car simply would not work on a greasy track. We now hoped for any conditions but these for race 1, which was to be held later that day. When race 1 finally came around, we were relieved to see that the rain had set in, and the track was most definitely wet and not just greasy. These were conditions we excelled in at Rockingham, and so were really looking forward to the race. So, from 9th on the grid, I started race 1. I made a great start, and by the end of the first lap had already passed a couple of cars, capitalising on other drivers steady starts. I then set about catching the cars that had managed to break away at the start, and finding a way past. I dived around the outside of one into the esses at the back of the circuit, which gave me the inside line into the second part of the corner, and also managed to squeeze past another Viper into the bomb-hole. It was tight! Before I knew it I was in 4th place. It was whilst I was chasing down my next victims that the safety car was brought out as a result of 2 GT4’s crashing at the bomb-hole. Andy (Chief engineer) was on the radio counting down to the pit window, and when we realised the safety car would stay out past the start of the window, we knew we had to pit straight way in order to keep track position. So did everyone else! So just after 23 minutes into the race, practically the entire grid pitted. We made a good stop and came out the pits in 4th. These was a small shake up though, the leading Ford GT was behind as a result of its additional pit penalty, and one of our competitors had taken too short of a stop, allowing them to regain in front us. This was no problem for Jon as he soon made his way past the cars ahead, and with around 10 minutes to go to took the lead from one of the CR Scuderia Ferrari’s. He was pulling away from the pack, but there was one car catching him up, it was the ridiculously fast Ford GT. They were catching at over a second a lap, but Jon kept his cool until the chequered flag, to take the win by 0.6 second. An amazing result, especially considering we started 9th on the grid. This of course strengthened our championship lead, and put us in high spirits for race 2 the following day. We awoke on Sunday to find sunshine, and nice hot weather, a welcome sight! This meant however that everyone had to set a car up in the 15 minute warm up session, for conditions we had not yet driven in. Jon took the car out for the warm up, with a setup on that we had fine tuned from previous events. It worked very well and was quick straight away. We discussed our options, made a small adjustment and then prepared for the race. It was Jon’s turn to start the race, which he did from a lowly 14th on the grid. After an excellent start and first lap, Jon emerged on the pit straight in 9th, and then began to pick off further cars with some excellent moves, putting him in 5th position when he was called into the pits. The driver change was excellent as always, and I was able to lap consistently fast in some clear air, knowing it was key to moving up the order during the pit window. Once the pit stop chaos had settled, it was evident we were in 3rd place, and catching the leader. Slightly further ahead was the rapid Ford GT and then in the lead was the Christians in Motorsport Ferrari. Both the Ford GT and I were able to pass the Ferrari, which was over 10 seconds ahead after the pit stops. I then set about catching the Ford GT, and whilst I had the gap down to only a second at one point, it was evident the car was too quick for us to realistically pass. Also, this was the first dry run we had in the Viper without the restrictor plate, and I could see the fuel level was beginning to run low, the gauge reading as little as 2 litres on some occasions. For these two reasons I took the decision to consolidate our 2nd place, to conserve fuel, whilst staying close enough to the Ford to capitalise on any mistakes that they might make. It turned out that like us, they drove a great race, and we crossed the finish line just 2.8 seconds behind them to take our 5th podium finish in 6 races! Needless to say our podium celebrations were enthusiastic! This is where the championship gets exciting! We hold a 16 point lead over 2nd place, and the next round of the championship is at Thruxton, which the Dodge Viper is known to suit. I can’t wait to get back in the car, and I hope you can make it to Thruxton to see us defend our championship lead. Once again, thank you to all my supporters that have helped me to get on the grid, and keep winning. James. |
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