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Thruxton thrashing! 1st July 2008 What a weekend! We entered with a 16 point lead following our second win at Snetterton, and with Thruxton being the fastest circuit on the calendar suiting the Viper, we were hoping for an excellent points score. As with all racing at Thruxton, there was no test day on Friday, so any setup work had to be done in a one hour session on Saturday morning. I had not driven Thruxton since 2004 when I raced in the Formula Renault championship (funnily enough it was one of the last races I did before racing this year), so I went out first. I worked on car setup for the first half of the session, before handing over to Jon for his familiarisation with the circuit. Unfortunately, whilst Jon was practicing the Anti-lock braking system failed on the car, causing some huge lock-ups which destroyed a front tyre. Whilst myself and Jon have driven many cars without ABS, the Viper is designed for use with the system, with large brakes and a huge amount of Servo assistance, meaning very little feeling on the pedal. This is made worse by the fact that there is no way to manually adjust the brake balance on the car. Problem! We had heard of other teams having nightmare problems with this system, which proved to be what we had, as the ABS did not work at all for the rest of the weekend. Qualifying was tricky, we knew we had to try our best, but couldn’t afford to lock-up the tyres as they would be needed for the races. At Thruxton we use a harder tyre compound as it is a notorious circuit for damaging tyres to failure, so the problem couldn’t have come at a worse time. In the first session I qualified the car in 6th place, not high enough! Jon put in a very good lap time, that put us 11th on the grid for race two. We firmly believed that with the ABS we could have lapped at least a second faster, putting us in the hunt for pole position in both races. The team worked hard to fix our ABS problem before the first race which took place on Saturday afternoon, but as we already know it was not possible. It was obvious that the weekend was now about damage limitation. It was my job to start the first race again, which I did from 6th place. I made an extremely good start, squeezing through the middle of two vipers early on to gain 4th place. I was then able to chase down the fast starting Ferrari of Cullen/Shovlin to put us 3rd. The trick was to keep a good pace during the early part of the race, whilst looking after the tyres and fuel consumption. After all, Jon was very keen to take over in the car with some rubber left on the front tyres! As I settled into a rhythm that kept us in touch at the front, the safety car was deployed (seemingly customary for 2008) as a result of A Ginetta and a Lamborghini getting stranded on opposite ends of the circuit. It was a sizeable period which inevitably resulted in the pit window opening under the safety car. All but one car, including myself, dived into possibly the smallest pit lane of the season, Chaos followed! As has happened all year, our driver changeover went perfectly, but we were blocked in by the CIM car of Alan Simmonsen. And they were blocked in by the car in front! When we eventually exited the pits, miraculously we were still 3rd, but behind two cars that were previously not even in the top 10! That’s how crazy the pit-lane activities were. It was then up to Jon to keep us in this strong position, and the race resumed soon after the pit stop. Jon did a fantastic job, passing the Team Modena Lamborghini for second, but eventually being demoted by the ABG Viper of Aaron Scott. Third place….. no ABS, that was some serious damage limitation! What made this even better was the fact that our closest championship rivals finished behind us, extending our points lead further. For the rest of the evening, and the Sunday morning, the Team Trimite Brookspeed crew of Andy, Mike and Sam worked tirelessly to fix our ABS problem, still to no avail! I kept them company until gone eleven, whilst sitting in the drivers seat of the car checking the data from the first race, and assisting with some brake bleeding. Jon lined up for race two a few places higher than we had anticipated. Both Modena Lamborghinis had blown their engines on Saturday, and Tech 9 didn’t run theirs to protect the expensive motors from damage. Nevertheless, there was still a lot of work to do. We are always confident of success, but damage limitation was our goal, and not allowing our main rivals to gain too many points on us, bearing in mind our car still wasn’t fully functional! Jon made a great start, and within just a couple of laps was into 4th place, making great headway. Unfortunately the race was then red-flagged due to a massive, high-speed crash involving Bradley Ellis in a GT4 Ginetta. He collided with Rob Austin, and hit a marshal post at over 100mph! Bradley was taken straight to hospital, and was later diagnosed with a fractured neck bone. At the restart, Jon started in the 4th place he had earned in the first part. The race had now been shortened to just 30 minutes so a quick tactics discussion needed to take place, and we were confident our pit strategy would work for us. Only a few laps into the race, the leading ABG Viper was forced into the pits to repair damage to the rear of the car, promoting Jon to 3rd place, closely following the leading cars. We knew that the majority of teams would pit very late into the race, and our aim was to miss the pit-lane chaos that we had seen the day before. For this reason we pitted slightly earlier than our rivals, resulting in a clear pit-lane allowing a customary fast stop from the team. Now at the wheel of the car I was released into 4th place, pushing hard to try and leap-frog those that had not pitted. The job had to be done as quickly as possible, as due to the shortened race, my stint would last only around 10 minutes. I was able to leap-frog the CIM Ferrari, and set about chasing down a CRS Ferrari and the 22GT Aston Martin. I caught and passed both cars with ease, flying past both on the fast section at the back of the track. The cars now following even had a coming together, which gave me the breathing space I needed to reduce my lap times by over a second to look after the tyres. Having seen canvas on our front tyres after race one, and Fabrizio Giovanardi lose a British Touring car race earlier in the year due to a tyre failure, I saw this as extremely necessary! We won…. Taking a comfortable victory in another memorable British GT race, and remember, still without ABS! There was however one more twist to the weekend. We were called up to the clerks office and handed a 4 second penalty for speeding in the pit-lane, as was the third placed car of Sutton/Meadows. Not very happy, we took to the podium in second place due to this penalty! However, after downloading the data from the car, both ourselves, and the CRS Ferrari were able to prove that the speed gun readings were incorrect, reinstating our first place some 30 minutes after the race! Awesome! We have now extended our lead to 25 points, with only four rounds remaining. Some excellent consistency, 3 wins, and 7 podium finishes making us clear favourites for the 2008 title which, barring any problems, we hope to seal at Brands Hatch in just two weeks. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my supporters, including Lloyds TSB Private Banking and their guests for supporting me this weekend, through the highs and the lows! Also, I would like to thank Team Trimite Brookspeed for all their hard work and effort that allows myself and Jon to race at the front of the Avon Tyres British GT Championship. I can’t wait to get back out in two weeks, but for those of you that will be at the British GP next weekend, I will se you there. Live, Eat, Breathe Motorsport! |
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