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Donington Park 7th May |
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After the problems at
Oulton Park we decided to run at the Official Test at Donington Park.
We obviously needed to check the gearbox and we needed to make sure that
we could optimize our package before the season “dwindled into oblivion”. We
actually didn’t do much running on the day as it happened.
Both Rob and I were comfortable with the car and our times were within
half a second of each other. We
were not as quick as the FIA car which also took to the track and I looked
longingly at what the Storm could do without the restrictor penalties we were
carrying. We had already resigned
ourselves to the fact that we would not be challenging for pole, particularly as
the Marcos of Cor Euser was running without any penalty whatsoever despite
giving the “works” cars a run for their money in the FIA World Championship.
"Guess what Julian – Schirley’s
just taken the Craner’s flat …." And what was Julian’s
reply – without hesitation ….. "
How bad is the car?" The pit crew then
commenced the "re-styling" of the splitter.
They did a great job of putting it all back together again but the new
design would be untested. I looked
forward to an interesting few opening laps........ Race day was initially
dull and overcast with the threat of rain in the afternoon.
Fortunately, due to the gravity of Rob’s impact, we were allowed to run
for three laps in the morning to check everything was still “pointing in the
right direction”. Rob
assured me it was, although was unable to get up to race speed. Mmmmm …….. Lining up on the grid was
interesting - Euser, Cleland,
Harvey, Erdos, Cunningham, McKellar and Astley.
No prisoners at Redgate by the look of it.
Our tactics were simple – there was no way I could hold on to the back
of Euser but I would try to hold on to the other group as best I could. Sure enough 4th to 8th after Redgate
– another cracking Warnock start! I was far too tentative on my opening laps but
probably rightly so. As I tried to
close up to the TVR I had a very “brown-pants” moment going into the Craners.
The damage from qualifying, despite the marvelous efforts of the guys,
had robbed us of a significant amount of down force. I did however stay in
touch with the “significantly quicker in a straight line” boys ahead and
went for the pitstop early. We were
very quick during our stop and leapfrogged the TVR; it also put Rob on the tail
of the Lotus which he passed and then the Viper which he also managed to get the
better of. These three were locked
together for a number of laps before the Viper managed to sneak through again. I knew Rob had to be struggling with the understeer.
The good thing though was that they were getting nearer and nearer to the
leading Marcos.
The timesheets show it
all – we were only the 8th fastest car on the track and the times
of Rob and I were almost identical. That’s
as fast as the car would go. A great victory for the
team which as I say was not expected. Fortunately
we are now back “in the hunt” and hopefully we will be competitive at
Silverstone in a fortnight.
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We briefly held second
place in qualifying but things took a turn for the worse when Rob tried to take
the Craner Curves flat to move us higher up the grid.
And
I guess this is where Lady Luck played us a hand.
